







-J^" V 








& /. 






o " o , 



'bV 








,/"-^ 




^>9- 










, > 



■^AO* 






♦ "^ "^ 



s^ .^ 




.<JV^ 







o V 



-1^- 3 




1^ ^""*. ",^ 







o . o ' O,^ C 



0^ 0°:-. -^o ^^^ 




.^'% 













0' 




-\.^ 



o 













AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



This is intended to be a brief or compendium of a 
larger volume on Mr. Garland which is to follow 
at some later date, when the author may have the 
time and money tO' hunt out other records, and write 
up still other phases of the great Arkansan's noble life. 



J 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Section I. Early life, etc. Difficulties of a young lawyer. 
Rising in his profession. Confederate congress. War record. 
The "Iron Clad Oath" case. Governor, etc., etc. 

Section II. His career in the Senate. ' Excerpts from his 
speeches in the Senate, briefs, etc. An estimate of his 
senatorial career. 

Section III. His career as Attorney-General of the U. S. 
His later efforts at Washington. His characteristics and 
character, personality, death, tribute, etc. 



A Life of Mr. Garland 

OF ARKANSAS 



A Thesis for the Master s Degree 



By FARRAR NEWBERRY, A. M. 



To THE Citizens of the State 
1908 



7 - ^^ 



LiSRARYcf CONGRESS i 
Two CoDies Received 

FEB 15 1909 

CopiTi^nt tntry 
CLASS Ql XXc. No.' 



^ I 



%!.■ 



Im'^ 


^ 


^- --^ 


1 ' 


J^^Bmr^ mS^ 


1 






AUGUSTUS HILL GARLAND. 



SECTION I 



It is not the province of the biographer to indulge in 
exorbitant praise — still less that of the thesis-writer 
to employ excessive flattery. The writer is not 
unaware that the written history of a man, whose life 
exhibits no adventures, save of an intellectual kind, 
is seldom read with that enthusiasm which is generally 
called forth by the story of a chieftain. Readers at 
large are more fond of tracing the progress of action 
than of thought, although the latter is the source of 
the former. They can gaze with rapture upon the 
beauty or magnificence of the stream, without caring 
to understand the mysteries of the power by which the 
fountain spray is thrown up from its secret home. 
The achievements of the great intelligencies of the age 
are too little regarded. If mankind would but mark 
the gradual unfolding of the principles, powers, and 
passions of the great master spirits, as indeed they 
are coming more and more to do in our day than ever 
before, each generation could be furnished with an 
amount of moral power by which it might elevate 
itself into a nobler sphere of being, and leave behind 
it a long train of glory for the illumination of posterity. 

The most fitting monument in honor of a public 
man is a faithful record of his public acts. If these 
acts be worthy, and the record simple, time, which 
destroys all things but good deeds and lofty thoughts, 



4 Augustus Hill Garland 

will embalm them for eternity. If they be base, 
"eulogy adds a lie to their deformities," and they 
must perish of their own disease. In the spirit of 
this truth we address ourselves to the task before us, 
seeking but to write a plain and simple record of a 
plain and simple life. 

Augustus Hill Garland was born in Tipton County, 
Tenn., June ii, 1832. Both his parents were from 
good families, and dated their ancestry back to Revo- 
lutionary times. His mother's people, the Hills, were 
from Franklin County, near Louisburg, and his father 
had been christened Rufus by his Revolutionary sire, 
in Virginia, who was from a highly respectable family. ^ 

An incident happened a few months after the birtfT 
of Augustus H. Garland that probably determined the 
parents to come to Arkansas, and hence to give to 
that State the great man about whom this book 
is written. This incident, otherwise trivial, will bear 
noting here. Rufus and his good wife had a fine farm 
in Tipton County, and were doing well. However, he 
had his fault — a grievous one — but one that hurt him- 
self more than anyone else. He, in common with 
other Tennesseans, went to the County Seat every 
monthly county court, and, after all business was over, 
indulged himself too freely with the juice of the corn. 
Rufe Garland sober was the pink of courtesy and 
manhood ; but drunk, he, like most others, was any- 
thing but that. The home-keepers of Tipton soon 
came to know his ways, and in the late afternoon of 
all county court days every door went shut and stayed 
closed until he was out of town. 

He was cured in a peculiar way. One Saturday 
evening, he started home, and at about the half-way 
point, he passed a place where a body of campers had 
built their night fire. Riding violently through the 
camp, he became engaged in a broil with a young 



Augustus Hill Garland 5 

man, and, in an infuriated state, stabbed him. When 
Garland saw him fall, he was sobered — he was Rufe 
Garland, the gentleman. He did all he could for him, 
and was much grieved over the affair. He was 
arrested, however, and put in the Tipton jail, and the 
injured young man lingered between life and death. It 
was a terrible punishment for him. He employed his 
time in making all kinds of tin instruments ; and chief- 
est of them, he constructed a tin fiddle, and with it he 
entertained the citizens of Tipton with his music, 
which, it is said, was really entrancing. The young man 
whom Rufe had cut got well, and became a listener 
to his fiddling. It so impressed him that he forgave 
him, slipped out into the great world and rejoined his 
people in Missouri, saying that he would never prose- 
cute a man who could make music like that. 

Garland was released, but he came out of jail a 
changed man. He then, feeling the necessity of mov- 
ing away from this scene, sent his wife and young 
son, Augustus, then a year old, together with Eliza- 
beth, John, and Rufus King, the other children, to 
Arkansas, with the assurance that he was done with 
whiskey — a resolution which he actually lived out 
during the remaining few years of his life. When he had 
sold all the possessions, he followed to Arkansas, and 
is said to have made one of the best citizens of his 
section. They came to a place on Red river, near 
what is now Garland City. In a short while the father 
died, and the family moved to Spring Hill, in Hemp- 
stead County. ^Upon the boyhood of Gus Garland, we 
shall not dwell at length. His father died a few years 
after they came, and his mother, strong both mentally 
and morally, gave her son an elementary education at 
home. They continued to live at Spring Hill until 
Augustus was twelve years of age, when they moved 
to Washington, Ark. As a small boy he was prepared 



6 Augustus Hill Gaeland 

for college partly in the private academy of H. R. 
Banks, and perhaps under another school-master, 
named Day. At fourteen he was sent by his mother 
to Bardstown, Ky., then the most famous seat of learn- 
ing in the Southwest, where he pursued his academic 
studies in the Catholic Schools of St. Mary and St. 
Joseph.' He took a thorough course of training, receiv- 
ing the degree, and also doing some post-graduate 
work. While there, he read law a great deal, as was 
the custom in those days, for ambitious young men. 
He attended courses in the court room when he could. 
At that time the local bar was very strong, and Gar- 
land profited greatly by this practice. 

Returning home, he went to Sevier County at nine- 
teen, to teach school for a year, in order to prepare 
himself better for the law, and get general experiencer 
It is said that while teaching at this early age, he was 
brought before a circuit court by one of the patrons of 
his school, for whipping the latter's child ; but he 
plead his own case, and was acquitted. 

In 1853 he was admitted to practice law at Wash- 
ington, Ark., just after he married Miss Virginia 
Sanders, which event took place when he was twenty- 
one, just upon his advent to manhood. Virginia San- 
ders was a brilliant young woman of an old family of 
Virginia, and herself beautiful, cultured, and tactful. 
She was the daughter of Simon T. Sanders, who for 
thirty years was Clerk of Hempstead County. Garland 
read law with several lawyers at Washington, while 
acting as Deputy Clerk under his father-in-law. He 
thus learned much that was useful in his after life, 
and more than all else, the great lesson of patient 
labor, which few men learn too well, and which, in 
fact, lays the foundation for all permanent greatness 
and worth. Nearly all of his time was devoted to the 
prosecution of legal studies, and to the general disci- 



Augustus Hill Garland 7 

plining of his mind, which training he still felt to 
be very incomplete. His mother had in the mean- 
time married Major Hubbard, afterward Circuit 
Judge, and a very prominent lawyer at Washington ; 
and Garland thus had the legal opportunities afforded 
by his father-in-law's office. They organized the 
firm of Hubbard and Garland, which continued for 
a few years, and was one of the strongest in South 
Arkansas.' Young Garland is said to have been always 
found sitting up with a law book at night, and of 
course throughout the day. Some one asked him one 
day, "would he never put down that book?" "Not 
until I have reached the office of Attorney General of 
the United States," was the reply. Later pages will 
tell how he actually did occupy that place. 

By 1856 Mr. Garland had advanced considerably in 
his knowledge of the law. His mental talents were 
even then beginning to come out. He had laid well 
his foundation ; he had made careful preparation ; and, 
.moving to Little Rock, he formed a law partnership 
with a Mr. Ebenezer Cummins. Mr. Cummins, besides 
being a law partner with Garland, was also in the firm 
of Pike and Cummins, also in Little Rock. One day 
in March, 1858, Cummins was found dead in his bed, 
from some sudden cause. Mr. Garland was left prac- 
tically alone to manage the ever-increasing business 
of both these firms, and the responsibility thus thrust 
upon him was great. He was then quite a young man, 
beardless and unskilled, but ever alert and diligent. 
The business took him into counties vv^here he had 
never been before. The way he sustained himself, so 
that his clients almost without exception, found it 
unnecessary to employ assistance for him, is nothing 
less than wonderful. A young man of strong mind 
and great energy, he advanced rapidly in his profes- 
sion. His habits were notably studious and systematic. 



8 Augustus Hill Gabland 

He was analytical and searching, and possessed untir- 
ing energ>% clear perception, and inexorable logic. His 
preparation of his cases was always exhaustive. He 
soon became thoroughly versed in the literature of 
his pro'fesion. He had resource, grasp, and above all, 
the sense of justice. Even at this early time, Mr. 
Garland was able to carry with him into the arena of 
the court room much of that judicial temperament that 
enables one to perceive both sides of questions brook- 
ing discussion — a faculty which long and assiduous 
practice at the bar tends most strongly to cultivate, 
and one that added greatly to his success in the fields 
of endeavor, and gave a certain unity to his career, 
varied as it was and full of vicissitudes. This faculty 
enabled him to preserve the same equanimity in vic- 
tory or defeat. 

One thing that contributed very largely to Mr. Gar- 
land's early success in his profession of the law, was 
that he was capable of doing an immense amount of 
work without apparent hurry or fatigue. Though quick 
to sieze and analyze the most complex details of fact, 
and to apply appropriate legal principles ; and though 
his memory of both was remarkably retentive and his 
legal knowledge very extensive, yet he never trusted 
to the inspiration of the moment, but placed his main 
reliance upon uncompromising labor. 

In the court room, as elsewhere, he was of a very 
kindly and tolerable disposition. He took men as he 
found them, and never demanded ideal perfection in 
anyone. He was especially considerate through force 
of long habit, towards all who were connected with 
the administration of justice — officers, witnesses, and 
jurors. Always courteous towards his adversaries, he 
was likewise respectful and deferential toward the 
courts ; and although it was said that he possessed the 
rare faculty of getting all that he desired out of a wit- 



Augustus Hill Garland 9 

ness, yet he rarely gave offense even to those who 
were unduly sensitive. His fine sense of humor often 
relieved the tedium of legal proceedings, but never 
degenerated into buffoonery, and was never used to 
wound the feelings of others. Strong and forcible in 
his presentation of facts, eager and intent upon vic- 
tory, his advocacy was a model of fairness ; and if he 
could not win on the merits of his case, he never 
resorted to any questionable methods. In the court 
room or out of it, his manners were affable, simple, 
and unaffected. Mr. Garland, though still a young 
man, soon came to be recognized as one of the leading 
lawyers of the State. More of his characteristics and 
character is reserved until the end. 

Through habits of close study Mr. Garland acquired 
an extraordinary familiarity with the decisions of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, and afterwards 
made use of them with striking effects. His acquaint- 
ance with them was not only thorough, but critical ; 
hence it was entirely consistent with his habits of 
thought that he should prefer to practice at that high 
tribunal. As the years elapsed, Mr. Garland, after the 
great dispute over the 'Tron-Clad Oath" law had been 
settled in his favor, came to have a profound respect 
for the Supreme Court, amounting almost to reverence. 
He was an enthusiastic admirer of Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, and had a great personal familiarity with the 
long line of decisions of the Supreme Court. Garland 
was first admitted to practice at that court on Decem- 
ber 26, i860. 

In politics Mr. Garland was an old-line Whig, but 
afterwards when party names changed, and the Whigs 
were absorbed in the other parties, he represented his 
State as a Democrat. In 1861 he was elected to repre- 
sent Pulaski County in the State Convention which 
voted for secession, and known as the Secession Con- 



10 Augustus Hill Garland 

vention of Arkansas. Though only twenty-nine years 
of age, he took a leading part among the conservatives 
in opposing radical action at the first session. Though 
an ardent Southerner, he nevertheless opposed seces- 
sion, and exercised as much or more influence than 
any other member of that body; still he seldom spoke 
or made a motion. In fact, the Union men were on 
the defensive, and simply attempted to keep wrong 
from being done. A man of great sprightliness and 
versatility, he did not attempt oratory, according to 
Judge Corrigan, who is one of the four survivors of 
that Convention, writing from memory for the Ameri- 
can Historical Review, Book I ; but he used a collo- 
quial and argumentative style that was attractive and 
convincing. He did not believe that the States should 
secede, and thought that the great calamity which was 
about to sweep his country to ruin. and desolation was 
greatly maximized by unwonted and unnecessary agi- 
tation, and could yet be averted. Mr. Garland was, 
we believe, a Nationalist at heart, as opposed to being 
a Seceder. He believed that the South was right in 
holding that at the time of the framing of the Consti- 
tution sovereignty was believed by all to be divided ; 
that the States, the original possessors of sovereignty, 
gave part of this, by donating certain sovereign powers, 
to the new-created nation. Sovereignty was then 
believed to be divisible; but decisions of the Supreme 
Court, from that time, began to mould the new idea oi 
nationality into practical form. Mr. Garland's profound 
admiration for the decisions of the Supreme Court 
undoubtedly must have influenced him greatly. He, 
like Alexander Stephens, and others, did not agree 
with Mr. Davis, that the South had the absolute right 
to secede whenever it pleased. He threw the whole 
weight of the counsels and his great personality into 
the work of averting serious measures ; but it was of 



Augustus Hill Garland 11 

no avail. The people were in too great a state of com- 
motion, and too much action towards moderation on 
the part of the convention would likely have proved 
dangerous. As the realization dawned upon Mr. Gar- 
land that war was then inevitable, he was confronted 
with the problem of whether he should put his ser- 
vices to the task of further maintaining the Union and 
join the Union side in the coming conflict, or should 
take sides with his State and section. This grave 
question stared many great men of that time directly 
in the face. Hundreds of men of prominence in public 
life had to choose between State and Union. It was 
with reluctance that Mr. Garland chose to cleave to 
the former and let go the latter. He voted against 
secession until the effort to re-enforce Fort Sumpter 
by the Federal Government, which brought on the 
attack upon that fort by the forces of the South. Then 
he reluctantly yielded and voted for secession, and 
from then bn was a zealous supporter of the Confed- 
erate cause. 

Mr. Garland was sent by his State as a delegate to 
the Convention known as the Provisional Convention, 
at Montgomery, Ala., in May, 1861. He was elected 
by the Secession Convention to represent Arkansas 
at Montgomery by fifty-two votes, the largest received 
by any of the five, (Garland, Johnson, Thomasson, 
Watkins and Rust.) He took a leading part in the 
arguments incident to the framing of the provisional 
Constitution of the Confederate States. 

When he had finished service in that capacity he 
returned to Arkansas, and did some actual service in 
the trenches. This, however, did not last long; for his 
State had already become awake to his great ability, 
energy and patriotism ; and he was called from service 
in the Army to hold a seat in the lower House of the 
Confederate Congress. He was chosen without oppo- 



13 Augustus Hill Garlaih) 

sition. When the Confederate Capital was moved from 
Montgomery to Richmond, Va., Garland carried his 
family with him to that place. In 1862 he was returned 
to the Congress, then at Richmond, and was re-elected 
again in 1864, but soon resigned to accept a seat in the 
Confederate Senate, made vacant by the death of Hon. 
Charles B. Mitchell. 

As a member of the Confederate Congress Mr. Gar- 
land made his first really great reputation as a lawyer. 
In committee work, in debate, and in conference, he 
became one of the most influential men of that distin- 
guished body. His war record was not made on the 
battlefield, but in a place where heroism was just as 
much needed. It is true that the South's heroes of 
the sixties were for the most part heroes of the physi- 
cal battlefield. The noblest sons enlisted for the field, 
and comparatively few of manhood and merit remained 
to hold the helm of the ship of State. But Mr. Garland 
realized that fearless, honest men were needed in polit- 
ical offices then more than any other time ; and so his 
services were in the civil halls of his country, and not 
upon the field. He could not have done a wiser thing; 
and more is the honor due him for it. The conflict for 
justice and freedom from selfish tendency was as great 
and terrible as any ever settled on a hard-fought bat- 
tlefield. These men who held the places of civil trust 
in the South were, more than all the generals of the 
war, the index-fingers of the country's welfare. For 
Mr. Garland, therefore, it was an all-important matter 
that he guard the more carefully his every act and 
word, that it might redound to the glory of his State, 
and the good of the Confederacy's cause. The South's 
great Epic of the future, that will tell of the private 
Confederate soldier's last farewell to home, as he left 
to join the faded ranks of the gray; of the picket's last 
watch on earth, from which he entered into the death- 



Augustus Hill Garland 13 

watch, to guard his fallen comrades; of the fortitude, 
the self-sacrifice and matchless devotion of the daugh- 
ters and wives, whose weapons were sacred prayer and 
sacred tears ; of the faithful old slave, who carried the 
body of his dead master, wrapped in the flag he fol- 
lowed, and laid upon his own shield, to the sad ones 
at home — this ''Iliad" of the future will also tell, with 
the imperishable history of a Livy, of the faithfulness 
and service of the devoted civilians of the Confederacy, 
who kept unstained throughout the struggle the escut- 
cheon of her public dignity in a Congress which, 
though unrecognized by the National legislature, was 
yet her source of law and progress. Mr. Garland on 
one occasion many years later said that he had been 
prominently spoken of more than once for the place of 
Attorney General in the Confederate Cabinet. 
, At the close of the war Mr. Garland resumed the 
practice of law in Little Rock. On January 24, 1865, 
Congress pjassed a law prohibiting those who had aided 
the South from practicing in the United States Courts, 
without taking the "Iron-Clad Oath." This was a 
heavy blow to the leading lawyers of the South, and 
deprived them of one of their chief means of support. 
All Southerners felt that the law was unjust. Mr. 
Garland believed that Congress had no constitutional 
right to pass such a law, and resolved to test its valid- 
ity in the United States Supreme Courts. He argued 
that it was invalid, producing one of the most power- 
ful, forceful and clearest briefs of argument ever made 
before that high tribunal. He won his case, and the 
law was set aside by the court on account of its uncon- 
stitutionality. This was a great victory for Mr. 
Garland, and won for him a national reputation as a 
lawyer. This successful effort to secure readmission 
to the United States Courts without the iron-clad test 
oath, was one of the most notable contests ever waged 



14 Augustus Hill Garland 

there. The victory gave Mr. Garland high prestige in 
his State, as well as a national reputation, and resulted 
in his election to the United States Senate in 1867, 
though he was not permitted to take his seat. Owing 
to the importance of the case, we submit a report of 
notes on the proceedings of the same, as given in 4 
Wallace of the United States Supreme Court Reports. 

Mr. Garland had been permitted to practice before 
the Supreme Court of the United States in i860. His 
name remained on the roll of the Supreme Court Attor- 
neys from then until 1865, but the Rebellion inter- 
vened, and all the business in which he was concerned 
at the time of his admission remained indisposed of. 
Having taken part in the Rebellion by being in the 
Congress of the "so-called" Confederate States, from 
May, 1861, until the surrender, first in the lower House 
and afterwards in the Senate, he could not take the 
oath prescribed by Congress, before mentioned, and 
the rule of the court itself, of March, 1865. Arkansas, 
in May, 1861, seceded and attached herself to the Con- 
federacy. In July, 1865, Garland received from Presi- 
dent Johnson a pardon, which granted "full pardon and 
anmesty for all ogenses commdtted in the Rebellion, and 
conditioned as follows : The pardon to take efifect from 
the day on which the said A. H. Garland shall take the 
oath prescribed in the proclamation of the President, 
dated May 29, 1865 ; and to be void and of no effect 
if the said A. H. Garland shall hereafter at any time 
acquire any property whatever in slaves, or make use 
of slave-labor." Mr. Garland took the oath and faith- 
fully pledged himself to support the constitution, and 
all laws made during the Rebellion with reference to 
the emancipation of slaves. 

Garland produced his pardon, and by petition filed 
in court, asked permission to continue to practice as an 
attorney and counsellor of the court, without taking 



Augustus Hill Garland 15 

the oath required by the Act of January, 24, 1865, and 
the rule of the court. He rested his application princi- 
pally on the grounds: (i) That the act of January 24, 
1865, so far as it affected his status in the court, was 
unconstitutional and void ; and (2) that if the act were 
constitutional, he was released from compliance with 
its provisions by the pardon of the President. Messrs. 
Reverdy Johnson and M. S. Carpenter argued for the 
petitioner, Mr. Garland, who had filed a brief of his 
own, presenting fully his case : 

I. The act of January 24, 1865, was an ex post facto 
law. Suppose '*A" tomorrow commits assault and bat- 
tery. Tomorrow, say, Congress passes a law that no 
person shall hold any office of honor or profit until he 
shall have taken an oath that he has never committed 
that crime. Is it not apparent that such an act, in its 
practical operation, would be ex post facto, as adding 
to the punishment of assault and battery an important 
penalty not attaching when the crime was committed? 
This is only an illustration of the proposition that an 
act is unconstitutional, which accomplishes a result 
forbidden by the Constitution. 

II. That is the result accomplished by the act 
complained of, and how does that result accord with 
the spirit and provisions of the Constitution ? The act 
of Congress of January 24, 1865, accomplishes a result 
in direct opposition to the constitutional effect of the 
pardon. The President says, **You shall not be ex- 
cluded from practicing in the Supreme Court in conse- 
quence of your crime; I pardon you." The act of 
Congress says, "You shall never practice in the 
Supreme Court without taking an oath which will be 
perjury, and then, on conviction of that, that shall 
disqualify you." The Constitution provides that the 
President "Shall have power to grant reprieves and 
pardons for all offenses against the United States, 



16 Augustus Hill Garland 

except In cases of impeachment." The effect of the 
pardon is to make the offender a new man. Therefore 
the effect of the pardon is to make it impossible for 
any power on earth to inflict, constitutionally, any pun- 
ishment whatsoever upon the petitioner for the crime 
of treason specified in the pardon. 

III. The act, as applied to the petitioner, visits 
upon him a punishment of his pardoned crime. 

(i) The pardon absolves him from all punishment 
for his offense. 

(2) The act in question does, in its operation on 
him, disfranchise him from holding office. 

(3) Such disfranchisement is a punishment for 
which he has been pardoned. 

(4) Therefore, the act and the pardon are in con- 
flict, and the pardon must prevail. 

IV. What right has Congress to prescribe other 
qualifications than are found in the Constitution? Con- 
gress can exercise none but delegated powers. If this 
act be constitutional, there is no limit to the others 
which may be hereafter prescribed. 

The petitioner's rights to practice in the Federal 
Courts is property. He has a vested right in his office 
4s an attorney, of which he can only be deprived by 
some regular judicial proceeding. Depriving the peti- 
tioner, therefore, of his office, by an enforcement of 
this act of Congress, is depriving him of his property 
without due process of law. 

Mr. R. H. Marr, of Louisiana, had filed a similar 
petition, and he also presented an argument for Mr. 
Garland. Mr. Speed, Attorney General of the United 
States, argued for the constitutionality of the act: 

"The privilege of practicing law is not a natural 
right, but a privilege created by the law, and accord- 
ing to its conditions. If Congress could present the 
old oath of 1789 to Attorneys, why can it not prescribe 



Augustus Hill Garland 17 

the present one? Cannot the legislature prescribe the 
qualifications which the counsellor shall have? Where 
is the limit? 

"As to the expediency and propriety of such an act 
as that of January 24, 1865, that involves a question of 
duty in Congress, with which this court has nothing 
to do. It would seem that, in times such as we have 
had, some oath ought to be required that would keep 
from this bench and bar men who had been guilty, 
and more than guilty, of treason." 

Mr. Stanbery, special counsel for the United 
States, also argued against admitting Mr. Garland. His 
point was, that pardon is forgiveness, but not neces- 
sarily restoration, and that Congress had the right to 
pass the act, and the Court to pass its rule. Then he 
discussed the expediency of Congress' passing the said 
law. He stated that the law was eminently and posi- 
tively expedient at the time. 

The brilliant argument of Mr. Reverdy Johnson, in 
reply to the argument of the opposition ends with a 
thrilling and somewhat eloquent conclusion. We give 
both argument and conclusion, briefly : 

I. The law in question, in its application to Mr. 
Garland, is an ex post facto law. However criminal 
his conduct may have been, and however liable he may 
have been to prosecution, the particular punishment 
inflicted by the act of 1865, could not have been 
amended. He could not have been convicted for not 
taking that oath, or any other, but only "upon the tes- 
timony of two witnesses, to the same overt act, or on 
confession in open court." 

n. The act is also in conflict with that part of the 
constitution (the fifth article of the amendments), 
which provides that "no person shall be compelled, in 
any criminal case, to be a witness against himself, nor 



18 Augustus Hill Garland 

be deprived of life, liberty and property, without due 
process of law." 

III. The act is void because it interferes with the 
rights and powers conferred on the Judiciary Depart- 
ment of the government, by the third Article of the 
Constitution. The admission of counsel is a preroga- 
tive of the court, and cannot be interferred with by 
any other department of the government. 

IV. The answer to the argument of the opposition 
that the privilege of practicing before a court is not 
a ''natural right" is, that the very preservation of lib- 
erty itself demands the aid of counsel. The safety of 
the citizen depends on the lawyer. The Courts also 
require their aid. Congress would, therefore, but con- 
vert themselves into a semblage of tyrants, regard- 
less of the safety of the citizens, recreant to the cause 
of freedom, and forgetful of the guarantees of the con- 
stitution, if they attempted to deny to the courts and 
to the citizens the assistance of counsel. 

V. Even conceding the constitutionality of the act, 
Mr. Garland is removed from its operation by the 
President's pardon, with the terms of which he has 
complied. 

In conclusion, Mr. Johnson said: 

**May it please the court, every right-minded man — 
I should think every man who has within his bosom a 
heart capable of sympathy — who is not the slave to a 
narrow political feeling — a feeling that does not 
embrace as it ought to do, a nation's happiness ; must 
make it the subject of his daily thoughts and of his 
prayers to God, that the hour may come, and come 
soon, when all the States shall be again within the 
protecting shelter of the Constitution and Union — 
enjoying, all of them, its benefits ; contented, happy, 
and prosperous ; sharing, all of them, in its duties ; 
devoted, all, to its principles, and participating alike 



Augustus Hill Garland 19 

in its renown; that the hour when former differences 
shall be forgotten, and nothing remembered but our 
ancient concord and the equal title we have to share in 
the glories of the past, and to labor together for the 
still greater glories of the future, may soon come. And, 
may I not, with truth, assure your honor, that this 
result will be hastened by the bringing within these 
courts of the United States a class of men, now 
excluded who, by education, character and profession, 
are especially qualified by their example to influence 
the public sentiment of their respective States, and to 
bring those states to the complete conviction, which 
it is believed they most largely entertain, that to sup- 
port and defend the Constitution of the United States, 
and the government instituted by it, in all its rightful 
authority, is not only essential to their peoples' hap- 
piness, but is a duty to their country and their God." 

The arguments concluded, Mr. Justice Field deliv- 
ered the judgment of the court : 

'The exaction of the oath that the party has never 
taken part in nor aided any movement against, the 
United States, is the mode provided for ascertaining 
the parties on whom the act is intended to operate : 

"The power of pardon conferred by the constitution 
on the President is unlimited except in cases of 
impeachment. It extends to every offence known to 
law, and may be exercised at any time after its com- 
mission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or 
during their pendency, or after conviction and judg- 
ment. 

''A pardon reaches the punishment of the offense, 
and the guilt of the offender. 

"The petitioner in this case (Mr. Garland), having 
received a full pardon for all offenses committed by his 
participation, direct or otherwise, in the Rebellion, is 
relieved from all penalties and disabilities attached to 



20 Augustus Hill Garland 

the offense of treason, committed by such participa- 
tion. For that offense he is beyond the reach of pun- 
ishment of any kind. He cannot, therefore, be 
excluded by reason of that offense, from continuing 
the enjoyment of a previously acquired right to appear 
as an attorney and counsellor in the Federal Courts. 

Mr. Justice Miller, in behalf of himself and the Chief 
Justice, Mr. Chase, and Messrs. Justices Swayne and 
Davis, delivered a dissenting opinion. 

In a little book written in 1898, and entitled "Exper- 
iences in the Supreme Court," Mr. Garland humor- 
ously relates of the getting of his pardon, and of the 
great case, as follows : "In July, 1865, I called on Pres- 
ident Johnson with much amiability, and requested 
pardon for my deeds of omission and commission in 
the row ; and, seconded by the efforts of my constant 
and steadfast friend, Mr. Reverdy Johnson, I pro- 
cured the pardon. It was large and capacious, and I 
hugged it closely and went off rejoicing with exceeding 
great joy, as a novus homo would naturally do. Before 
going home, however, I went to the Clerk's office and 
renewed a very pleasant acquaintance with those there, 
and formed others quite agreeable. I drew a petition 
and forwarded to President Johnson, and he filed it in 
the Supreme Court. Late that year I came on to see 
after it. By this time the move had attracted much 
attention and excited no little interest; and the day 
after I came, Mr. Middleton, then Clerk of the Court, 
said he desired very much to see the Southern law- 
yers back in court, and recommended me to get, if I 
could, Mr. Matt Carpenter, to appear in the case. I 
spoke to him and obtained his aid. The case was 
argued in that term, Johnson, Carpenter, R. H. Marr 
and myself appearing for it, and Mr. Speed, Attorney 
General, and the courtly and polished Stanbery, Spe- 
cial Counsel, against it. The Court held the case for 



Augustus Hill Garland 21 

some time under advisement, and then ordered a 
reargument, which was had ; and in due time a deci- 
sion by one majority was rendered in its favor." 

The case won for A. H. Garland so much^ popularity 
that he was early in the next year, 1867, elected to the 
Senate without opposition, and appeared to take his 
seat on March 4, 1867; but was not permitted to do so, 
as Congress refused at that time to admit representa- 
tives from the South. The next few years he continued 
to practice law at Little Rock. His practice was vastly 
too much for one man to manage, and he was, at dif- 
ferent times, associated both with General Sterling 
Cockrill and Colonel J. N. Smithee in law partnership. 
Mr. Garland was one of the Attorneys, in the Missouri 
Courts, in the greatest case that was ever decided by 
the United States Supreme Court, the case of Dred 
Scott. 

-T* 'K 't* '1^ 

Before going into Mr. Garland's public career as 
Governor of Arkansas, it is necessary to briefly out- 
line the events just preceeding, which are important 
in the history of the State, and in which Mr. Garland 
took an important part. The facts of history are taken 
from Shinn's History of Arkansas. Baxter was inau- 
gurated governor January 6, 1873. He was a member of 
the minstrel wing of the Republican party, but had 
promised to administer the laws in the interest of the 
people, without regard to party. Brooks, his oppo- 
nent, believed that the governorship was his, and con- 
tested the election of Mr. Baxter before the legislture, 
but v/ithout success. He then tried to get recognition 
before the United States Court, the Supreme Court, 
and, as a last resort, the Pulaski Circuit Court, but to 
no avail. In the meantime Baxter's acts did not please 
that wing of his party which had elected him, and it 
turned its forces over to declaring that he had not 



22 Augustus Hill Garland 

been rightfully elected. On the other hand, the Demo- 
crats, who had before opposed Baxter, turned now to 
his aid. Brooks repaired to the governor's office, and 
forcibly ejected him. He himself was sworn in May 
15, 1874, and held office thirty days. In the meantime, 
Gov. Baxter drove out to St. John's College, and was 
there guarded from attack by two companies of cadets. 

During the trying days just before the election of 
Baxter, he had a corps of advisors : — H. C. Caldwell, 
E. H. English, F. W. Compton, U. M. Rose, and Mr. 
Garland, — which, for courage, legal ability, and char- 
acter, has never been surpassed. These called upon 
him at St. John's College, and the situation was dis- 
cussed. A committee of prominent citizens did like- 
wise, and all advised him to declare martial law, 
assuring him that the people thought his cause was 
just and would uphold it. After due deliberation he 
did so. The militia began pouring in from all sides, 
and Little Rock became the theatre of war. Men were 
honestly divided in this great contest, known in his- 
tory as the Brooks-Baxter War, and the two opposing 
forces were led by two ex-Confederate soldiers. Gen- 
eral Pagan and Colonel Newton. These matters were 
telegraphed to Washington, and both sides aw^aited the 
decision of Federal authorities. President Grand fin- 
ally decided that the legislature of Arkansas was the 
body to decide the question. The legislature met on 
May II, 1874, and decided that Baxter was the legal 
governor. On May 15, Grant issued his proclamation 
in favor of Baxter, and commanded Brooks and his 
followers to disperse, which they did. 

The legislature passed an act calling a convention 
to frame a new constitution for the State. The con- 
vention met on July 14, and a new constitution 
removing all disfranchisements and registrations was 
framed, submitted to the people, and ratified by them. 



Augustus Hill Garland 23 

As a return for the faithfulness of the Democratic 
leaders who had aided him, Mr. Baxter had determined 
to establish a government that would do away with 
the evils of carpet-bag government, and give the peo- 
ple their rights. He had therefore called the con- 
vention mentioned above. Many of the ablest men of 
the State were delegates to this convention, and they 
framed the Constitution under which the people of 
Arkansas now live. Under it almost every office is 
in the hands of the people, instead of being subject to 
the appointing power of the governor. By it the legis- 
lature, the cities, and the counties are forbidden to 
issue bonds or levy heavy taxes. Under it the people 
have gradually taken to themselves the decision of 
all political and economic questions, and gained the 
power of governing themselves with enterprise, econ- 
omy and wisdom. 

Governor Baxter ordered an election of officers 
under the new Constitution. He did this despite the 
fact that he would lose half his term, as he had been 
elected for four years and had served but two. He is 
said to have been urged to run for re-election for the 
governorship, but declined, saying that if he accepted 
the nomination, it would appear that he had done 
what he had in order to get the support of the Demo- 
crats. Mr. Garland was an earnest supporter of Mr. 
Baxter, and had zealously espoused his cause in the 
struggle. He had been appointed Deputy Secretary 
of State when Baxter was first elected. He perhaps 
had as much or more than any one else to do in laying 
the plans and directing the movements which resulted 
in restoring Governor Baxter to power. And now, 
when Baxter declined the race for re-election, the 
Democrats nominated Augustus H. Garland without 
opposition.- In the general election he received 78,000 
votes, against 24,000 for his opponent. 



24 Augustus Hill Garland 

Very soon after Mr. Garland was inaugurated as 
governor, he was confronted by a proclamation made 
by Volney V. Smith, lieutenant-governor under Mr. 
Baxter, declaring himself the successor of Baxter and 
the rightful governor of Arkansas. This declaration 
was based upon the assertion that the acts of the leg- 
islature in calling a contitutional convention, etc., were 
null and void. Governor Garland ordered the arrest 
of Smith, and offered a reward for his apprehension. 
Smith wrote to President Grant protesting and asking 
for aid. Following is a copy of the letter, giving his 
point of view, obtained from Flemming's ''Documen- 
tary History of Reconstruction:" 

Little Rock, Nov. i6, 1874. 

From Smith to President Grant : 

The State government is completely overthrown by 
the connivance of Elisha Baxter, as that of Louisiana 
was by Penn's militia. It is true that the revolution by 
which it was accomplished was bloodless, but it was 
just as effectually done as though it had cost a thou- 
sand lives. Baxter himself used the office of Governor 
to organize the present revolutionary government. It 
was perfected in all its departments, civil and mili- 
tary, before he abdicated the office and turned over the 
same to Garland. When Baxter ceased to act, he 
yielded the office to a person who was the head of the 
new government, backed by a well-armed militia. In 
the face of such overwhelming advantages on the part 
of the Garland government, it would be worse than 
madness for me to try to re-establish the overthrown 
government by force of arms. It is because I am pow- 
erless that I appeal to you for aid. Before the life 
of any citizen is sacrificed, I desire to know from you, 
who are the arbiter between Garland and myself, 
whether I will be regarded as the rightful executive 



Augustus Hill Garland 25 

of a lawful government, or as being guilty of treason 
against it." 

Representations were also made to President Grant 
early in 1875 that the Constitution of 1868 had been 
overthrown by violence, and a new one adopted. In 
a special message, he reported the matter to Congress. 
Governor Garland invited the committee, known as the 
Poland investigating committee, to visit Arkansas and 
investigate the matter from the beginning. The com- 
mittee examined witnesses from the Democratic party 
and from both wings of the Republican party, and on 
February 19, 1875, reported to Congress that no inter- 
ference with the existing government of Arkansas, by 
any department of the United States Government, was 
advisable. Congress adopted the report, and Arkansas 
escaped Federal interference with her local affairs. 
(From Shinn's History.) President Grant shortly 
afterward appointed Smith consul to the Island of St. 
Thomas, and he left Arkansas for that place. 

To show the warm spirit in Arkansas at that time, 
a glowing account from the Fort Smith Herald, extra 
edition, is given: 

FORT SMITH HERALD— EXTRA 

Tuesday, Nov. 17, 1874. 

78,000 against 24,000 ! 

Trouble again! Baxter out! Garland in! Baxter's 

Lieutenant-Governor proclaims himself Governor. 

78,000 people say that Garland is Governor. 

It now remains for that 78,000 people to sustain 
Garland and the free voice of the people. Let the 
people be true to themselves. Let them come up like 
men, if needs be, and stand by their colors. The Gar- 



26 Augustus Hill Garland 

land government is the people's government. The 
lieutenant-governor and his Bourbon allies must be 
suppressed. If it be war, let it be war to the knife, 
and the knife to the hilt, if they force us to it, in 
defense of the new constitution, and the officers elected 
under it. Now is the time; and if Garland will have 
Smith and his followers arrested, tried and executed 
by drum-head court-maritial and shot; that done, go 
for 

CLAYTON, DO'RSEY, 

and their abettors. Then we will be rid of the great 
curse, and Arkansas will be free ! Sic semper tyrannis ! 

Thus we see that Mr. Garland was chosen to be 
governor in a critical and turbulent period of his 
State's history. Feeling ran high when the carpet-bag 
government was overthrown, and there was a demand 
for the punishment of the leaders. But Gov. Garland 
began the pursuance of a broad and liberal policy. He 
allowed neither persecutions nor prosecutions. Tak- 
ing the reins of government at the zenith of a success- 
ful revolution, when violence sought gratification, 
when passion struggled for the mastery, by a conser- 
vative policy, he soothed the one and discouraged the 
other. This policy he early announced in his first 
proclamation, as follows : — ''Should there be any 
indictments in the courts for past political offenses, I 
would suggest and advise their dismissal. Let the peo- 
ple of all parties, races, and colors, come together, 
be v/elcomed to our State, and encouraged to bring her 
up to a position of true greatness." 

The impoverished economical and financial condition 
of the State at the time of Mr. Garland's entrance 
upon the duties of office, was appalling. Resources 
were shattered, fortunes lost, and the people discour- 



Augustus Hill Garland 27 

aged. Mr. Garland himself said that when he first 
went into office there was not enough money in the 
State treasury to buy the kindling necessary to start 
a fire in his office. But he went about everywhere 
inspiring hope in the people by his example of courage 
and fortitude in this trying time. He administered the 
government with so much tact that the wounds of 
the past were rapidly healed, and good feeling restored. 
He built up the financial interests of the State, and 
restored confidence everywhere. The State govern- 
ment was conducted for two months on the promissory 
notes of individuals, and after that on borrowed money, 
for which loans were effected, but which in time 
were all paid back and liquidated. The first loan of 
$200,000 was paid back in June, 1876. Expenditures 
were cut down, and an effort was made to keep them 
within the limits of the appropriations. It was nat- 
urally not long before the change for the better began 
to take place. Scrip began to rise in value and before 
many years was all redeemed and destroyed. Thus 
was Mr. Garland largely instrumental in restoring 
prosperity to Arkansas, and people began to rebuild 
their scattered and dilapidated fortunes, that had been 
placed in the pitiless scales of war. 

So hopeful were the people that the legislature on 
November 30, 1875, made an appropriation to erect a 
building at the Centennial Exposition of the United 
States, to be held at Philadelphia the next year. The 
building was erected, and was an honor to the exhibi- 
tion as well as to the State. The Bureau of Awards 
granted prizes to Arkansas: — (i) For a large, well- 
planned building; (2) For a large and attractive exhi- 
bit of the natural and industrial products of the 
State ; (3) For a large collection of native woods ; (4) 



28 Augustus Hill Garland 

For an exhibit of agricultural products, especially of 
corn and cotton, the latter equalling any fibre of its 
kind in the United States. In addition the State took 
other prizes. This was the first effort of that common 
wealth to display her resources, and did much to allay 
sectional feeling and reunite the people. 




Augustus Hill Garland 29 



SECTION II 

The above is the important mission which Mr. Gar- 
land had to fill as governor of his State. The people, 
never ungrateful to a benefactor and a statesman, were 
ready to give him ^'higher things," and in 1877 he was 
elected without opposition to succeed Powell Clayton 
in the Senate of the United States. And this time he 
was admitted to that assembly — the arena where his 
fame, already having travelled across the nation, was 
to be maintained and increased, and where he was to 
restore the glory of former days, when Arkansas was 
represented in the Senate by Ashley and Sevier. At 
the expiration of his first term, he was re-elected with 
practically no opposition. Of the pages that are to fol- 
low dealing with his senatorial career, there needs 
must be some words of introduction. Any report of 
his utterances in that Chamber must necessarily be 
imperfect and incomplete. Many of his speeches are not 
mentioned for want of space. Several are herewith 
quoted almost in full — the most important — and quo- 
tations and notes are made from many others. But 
they are all upon the Congressional Record, which is 
the source of information of this search, and the 
authority for the facts here stated. His speeches 
should prove a constant pride to every patriotic citi- 
zen of Arkansas. The quotations that are made, unless 
they be from speeches on issues of great national 

The references lare all given by dates instead of by the 
method, Cong. Rec. 42 Cong., 1 Sess. p. 101, (for instance) 
As the dates appear on the backs of the volumes of Cong. 
Rec, the speeches may be found just as easily in this way. 



30 Augustus Hill Garland 

importance, are selected mainly for two reasons : first, 
to show certain characteristics of the man ; and second, 
to show their importance or meaning to the State of 
Arkansas. Some selected for the latter reason should 
be of more special interest to those who live in that 
State. 

Mr. Garland first entered the Senate of the United 
States at the opening of the session of 1877-8, early in 
December, 1877. He was honored by being placed upon 
the Standing Senate committees on Public Lands and 
on Territories, December 6. Of course he took but lit- 
tle part in the debate during his first session. On 
December 11, he had a bill read twice to establish a 
certain post-route in Arkansas. It was referred to the 
committee on Post-offices and Post-roads, but got no 
further. 

On February 18, 1878, he submitted the following 
resolution, which was considered by unanimous con- 
sent and agreed to: "Resolved, that the Secretary of 
V/ar be requested to make a report to the Senate of 
the work of removing a certain bar in the Arkansas 
river near Fort Smith ; whether any further appropria- 
tion is needed to successfully complete the same, and 
if so, what amount." 

On May i, Mr. Garland introduced a bill authorizing 
the appointment of a committee of three Senators, 
three Congressmen, and three others not members of 
either House, to inquire : — 

(i) — Into the relative effects of the tarii? under the 
existing law upon the different industries of the coun- 
try. 

(2) — Into the relative effects of the existing tariff 
upon the consumer and producer. 

(3) Into the relative merits of the specific and ad 
valorem system. 



Augustus Hill Garland 31 

(4) — What, if any, improper discriminations exist 
under the present law. 

(5) — What changes are necessary to be made to 
insure a wholesome law on the tariff, etc. 

(6) — Into, and review the whole tariff system, as 
now existing. 

(7) — That the said commission report the result of 
their examination, w^ith recommendations, at the 
earliest possible time. 

This bill was read a second time by its title, and 
referred to the Committee on Finance. This concludes 
his work in the Senate for the first term. He could not 
be expected to have spoken much then, because he 
would thereby have broken in upon that precedent of 
Senatorial dignity, which means that new Senators, 
for sometime after arrival, "be seen and not heard." 

Mr. Garland was back at the opening of Congress, 
December 3, 1878, and was again appointed on the 
standing committee on Public Lands and on Territo- 
ries, and also was appointed on the special committee 
of December 4, for the Prevention of Epidemic 
Diseases. 

On December 5. he made a few remarks which show 
in a manner his idea of the individual's rela- 
tion to the government. The facts were : — Geo. W. 
Clarke, of Crawford County, Ark., was appointed 
Indian agent, and gave bonds for such, in 1854. Jesse 
Warner and others v/ent on his bond as sureties. All 
who were worth the amount claimed were dead at this 
time, except Warner. Clarke was found to be in 
default, and relieved from duty in 1856. Those who 
went on his bond were notified in 1875. Warner, 
the only living one, sued to be relieved from liability. 
The investigating committee believed that great injus- 
tice had been done to the sureties by the delay on the 
part of the Government, and thought that they should 



32 Augustus Hill Garland 

be relieved from liability on the bond. Mr. Garland 
held to this opinion, and he said: — 

*'A high and lofty consideration lies at the bottom 
of this matter. It is said that no government is bound 
by statute unless specially barred. But when the gov- 
ernment puts herself in the position of an individual 
and goes into the courts of the country, she is held to 
the same degree of diligence, and the same exercise of 
energy, to which the individual is held. Her rights 
stand no better and no higher in that tribunal, than 
those of the individual who attends before it. Many of 
the sureties have died, and but one now, in Arkansas, 
is worth the money claimed on the bond. He is a high 
and respectable attorney of that State, and advanced in 
years. His application speaks in louder and better 
words than I can speak. I am always prepared to do 
right in a given case presented to me; and you may 
bring cases of this kind as often as you please, at every 
turn of the clock in the day, if you please, and I shall 
vote for them, come from what section of the country 
they may." 

On December 12, certain Senators got into a wrangle 
over a bill claiming to protect the Hot Springs Reser- 
vation at Hot Springs, Ark., from the encroachments 
of individual's building houses over the springs, and 
thus controlling the water from them. Mr. Garland 
said, in answer to a speech made by Mr. Hill, of Geor- 
gia :— 

'The point of Mr. Hill was, to protect the indigent 
and the poor people, that they may have the full use 
of the hot water. In that I fully concur. But there is 
a clause in the bill itself providing for free baths for 
the use of the indigent. No one big iron bath-house 
can procure a lease so as to infringe on this right. The 
bill provides that the government shall lease the 
grounds on which the Arlington Hotel stands, to its 



Augustus Hill Garland 33 

proprietors, and also to give to owners of bath-houses 
the sites on which their houses stand. The question 
of the title to Hot Springs has been in the courts for 
over thirty years, the government holding all the time 
the fee, never having issued the patent to anybody. 
In 1870 Congress passed the statute compelling parties 
to go before the Court of Claims and litigate with the 
United States the right to this property. Have the 
parties, to whom leases have been already made no 
rights in equity, and should they not be considered in 
adjusting these matters? This is but a temporary pro- 
vision to enable these parties to have their titles 
adjusted there. I am committed to none. I am as 
free and independent as to my actions toward that 
property, after the rights of my constituents there are 
determined, as if the property were in Pensacola or in 
Brooklyn. Leases have been made under the color of 
law, and the question is, shall we ignore and trample 
them under foot? There is great necessity for enact- 
ing the bill. It is almost a land without law there. 
It is time that Congress was doing something. The 
various propositions for the government to build 
hotels, lease bath-houses, etc., can come up at the 
proper time. So far as I represent the State of Arkan- 
sas, I am committed to none of them." 

On February 5, 1879, the discussion of the thirteenth, 
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitu- 
tion was up, and Mr. Garland spoke at considerable 
length. He offered an amendment to the resolution of 
Senator Morgan, of Alabama, offered as a substitute 
for the resolution of Senator Edmunds of Vermont. 
Garland's amendment inserted after ''that" the word 
"although," and inserted also, 'Svere not adopted in a 
legal manner," etc., to the words "are as," etc., mak- 
ing it read : "Resolved, that although the thirteenth, 
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitu- 



34 Augustus Hill Garland 

tion of the United States were not adopted in a legal 
manner, yet having been accepted, recognized, and 
acquiesced in by the States, they are as valid and bind- 
ing as any other part of the Constitution ; that the peo- 
ple of the United States have a common interest in the 
enforcement of the whole Constitution in every State 
and Territory ; and that it's alike the right and duty 
of the United States, so far as the power has been dele- 
gated to them, to enforce said amendments, and to pro- 
tect every citizen in the exercise of all the rights there- 
by secured." Although Mr. Garland's amendment 
received but five votes — Garland, Beck, Harris, 
McDonald and Vorhees — yet no one of the opposition 
for one moment doubted his sincerity of purpose or 
earnestness of effort; and even they, in their speeches, 
paid him the highest tributes, not merely in a formal 
and polite manner, but out of warm respect and regard. 
Owing to its importance as showing Mr. Garland's 
views of the amendments, the greater part of his 
remarks is herewith given : — 

''There is a difference between these three amend- 
ments and the other amendments to the Constitution. 
It is to draw this distinction that my amendment to 
the resolution is made. It is drawn in plain language, 
I could have said, instead of 'legal manner,' 'in due 
form,' or 'in due process of law,' but the good old word, 
'manner' is understood better in the country — in the 
midst of the people who have to bear the taxes and 
burdens of the government. When the amendments 
were adopted, eleven of the States of the Union had no 
representation here. Upon these States they were to 
operate, as well as on the others. The farce, which 
amounted later to a tragedy, was gone through, of 
submitting them to those States for ratification. 
Whether you indulge in the theory of what is called 
States Rights, or liberal construction, we must not 



Augustus Hill Garland 35 

forget, nor can any of us ever forg-et, that it is the people 
at last who compose the government. When they had 
not an opportunity to speak on the amendments, it is 
little more than a farce to say that they have been 
adopted by the States in a government made, carried 
on, and conducted by the people. My people had no 
more voice in the adoption of the amendments than if 
they had lived in Peru. Three-fourths of the people in 
Arkansas were disfranchised. The question was never 
submitted to the people. The legislatures were elected 
irrespertive of these questions ; and they in some 
instances represented no person this side of the moon. 
The fact that the Secretary of State promulgated the 
amendments does not help the case, because he was 
simply announcing to the country what already had 
been passed, and which in reality had never been voted 
on by all the people. The thirteenth and fourteenth 
amendments, and especially the former, came while the 
South was in the very throes of war. The fifteenth 
came when three-fourths were disfranchised. 

''But while I religiously and conscientiously believe 
that under the law and the Constitution of this coun- 
try they were not attended with the least legality in 
their ratification, yet they are as firmly and fixedly a 
part of the Constitution as any other of the amend- 
ments. The States, ever since they have been restored 
to their integrity, have accepted and recognized them. 
As Governor of Arkansas, I got the legislature to legis- 
late directly and indirectly on these amendments. They 
are enforced in that State, and there is not a man in 
Arkansas, so far as I know, to whatever party he 
belongs, who would escape from them. 

*T do not accept the decisions of the Supreme Court, 
acting here in my legal capacity, merely because they 
are such. I must be left to judge of the Constitution, 
in all of its parts, upon my own judgment, and I must 



36 Augustus Hill Garland 

take the responsibility of that judgment, whether it 
be good, bad, or indifferent." 

A little later in the discussion, Mr. Garland, said : — 
"The amendment is offered in good faith and as one 
of the convictions of my soul after a very long and 
painful examination of this question in more years than 
one. I take the responsibility of any error I may have 
made. I believe that even in the United States Senate, 
a man ought to express his honest convictions when he 
expresses any. The amendment is upon the record 
with my remarks. I will invite the Senate to a vote 
on it, and if it gets no other vote than my own, it shall 
receive that. I have no terror of being in the minority, 
for I have been the greater part of my life in the min- 
ority. I stated in my remarks before that I had 
enforced these amendments (in Arkansas), for the pur- 
pose of showing that they are valid ; but that they were 
valid through any legal process of ratification there is 
not power enough in this world or the next to make me 
say, in this or any other tribunal. But with all the 
detestation that I have for the origination of these 
amendments, I will never agree that any joint resolu- 
tion of these two Houses of Congress shall repeal 
them. They have now been recognized by legislation 
of the Southern States, and are parts of the Constitu- 
tion." 

Mr. Garland's tribute to Jefferson Davis was deliv- 
ered in the Senate May i, 1879. The bill was up, pro>- 
viding ''that the law granting pensions to the soldiers 
and their widows of the War of 1812, be made applica- 
ble in all its provisions to the soldiers and sailors who 
served in the war with Mexico of 1846." To this a pro- 
viso was made by Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, ''that 
no pension shall ever be paid under this act to Jeffer- 
son Davis, the late President of the 'so-called' Confed- 
eracy." This naturally aroused considerable resent- 



Augustus Hill Garland 37 

ment on the part of Senators from the South. The 
words of Mr. Garland quoted here are in no sense 
given because of any sectional feeling they may con- 
vey. He said : — 

"So far as Mr. Davis is concerned, I do not suppose 
he wants a pension, or ever thought of it for a moment. 
As one who served with him in a civil capacity in the 
late war (in the Confederate Congress), I wish I had 
the power and the authority now, and I know it would 
accord with every impulse of his heart, to enter here 
upon the record before the people of the country, a 
receipt in full to the Senator from Massachusetts, and 
all others who hold his views toward that distinguished 
gentleman. He would scorn it if tendered grudgingly. 
He was a gallant soldier in the Mexican War. His 
services are on the record of his country, and while 
they may not surpass, yet they will equal in history, 
all Grecian fame and all Roman glory. Mr. Davis while 
he would be proud of any recognition of his services 
for his country at any time, yet if he believed there was 
a man, woman or child in Massachusetts who 
begrudged him recognition, he would scorn it and turn 
from it as he would turn from the hiss of an adder. 

*'Mr. Davis and myself were not in a general way of 
the same politics in reference to this government; but 
I have never had occasion, in the long service that I 
had with him and under him, in a civil capacity 
entirely, to doubt his capacity, his integrity, or power 
of purpose under any and all circumstances ; and I will 
say to the Senator from Massachusetts, and all others 
who agree with him, that whenever they seek to see 
a game man die, whether in adversity or prosperity, 
they may go to the dying bed of Jefferson Davis, and 
they will witness that fact. 

"He is a bold man, indeed, who would say that this 
government has not been generous to those they con- 



38 Augustus Hill Garland 

quered; but he is a much bolder man who would say- 
that they have been generous. I deny that the conduct 
of the government toward Davis has been generous. 
When he was incarcerated in the prisons of 'their coun- 
try,' as they called it, poor and emaciated and broken 
down, beyond the power of doing harm to any living 
person, much less to any living government, and car- 
ried to Richmond almost as often as Troy viewed her 
walls encircled and her chief pursued, to' stand his trial, 
they dared not try him and they have not to this day 
tried him. The sacred right of trial has been denied 
him, though he has sought and implored it, from time 
to time, and his attorneys for him. How coiild he, in 
decency's name, in the name of all that is worth plead- 
ing for, ask the country to pardon him, when they kept 
him in chains, although liberated upon the bond of 
friends in the North? The conduct, instead of being 
generous, has been cruel ; it is barbarous, it is inhuman. 

*T look about and see others who served in the 
Mexican War honored by the government. Yet Jef- 
ferson Davis cannot receive a pittance from the gov- 
ernment he has served so well, and the mere mention 
of it stirs the blood of gentlemen who talk of gener- 
osity to indignation. You talk of generosity and you 
speak of the proud eras of your history. Why, sir. 
in the proudest era of Roman History, no general was 
ever permitted to have a triumph or bear a trophy 
that he had won in a civil war; and the produest and 
greatest military nation of modern Europe, England, 
has had her escutcheon blurred because she held the 
great Napoleon a prisoner, as this Government would 
have held Jefferson Davis, but for the generosity of 
Horace Greely and a few others, the latchets of whose 
political shoes those who are urging this motion are 
unworthy to unloose." 

At the opening of the session of 1879-80, Mr. Gar- 



Augustus Hill Garland 39 

land was appointed on the Judiciary Committee, and 
made Chairman of the Committee on Territories. He 
was also appointed on three out of the eight special 
committees. On January 21, 1880, he was appointed on 
the Senatorial Board of visitors to attend the next 
annual examination of the Cadets at the United States 
Military Academy at West Point. He re-introduced his 
bill providing for a commission to examine into the 
subject of the tariff, with a view to facilitating legis- 
lation thereto. It was again referred to the Committee 
on Finance, but got no further. He also introduced, 
among others, a bill (Senate bill No. 925) to provide 
for the reappraisement of the abandoned military reser- 
vation at Fort Smith, Ark. This was referred to the 
Committee on Public Lands, but got no further. 

On December 18 a bill was up providing that a com- 
mittee of five be appointed, which should obtain 
information of methods which would lead to the emi- 
gration of negroes northward. Mr. Garland humorously 
referred to his own State : "From the leading colored 
gentlemen of Arkansas, I have letters informing me 
that but few have ever left that State, and those few 
have returned to take up their abode again ; consistent 
with the saying that no man ever left that State yetj 
v/hite or black, who did not go back there to live again, 
except one poor individual who sickened while man- 
fully making his way back, and died before he could 
reach the confines of his State." 

On March 18, Mr. Garland made a long speech, or 
series of speeches, in the debate on the bills for the 
establishment of titles at Hot Springs (H. R. Bill No. 
4244), upon which he had spoken brieby on December 
12, 1878. He had time and time again sought the Senate 
and begged it to take up this matter and vote upon it, 
before the session should end. But they had hesitated 
and neglected it. Mr. Garland's speech was very long. 



40 Augustus Hill Garland 

He went into the elaborate details of the case. He 
argued that the people at Hot Springs had practically 
made the land's value, by their own improvements 
upon it; and that, while it was a large matter finan- 
cially to those people, many of whom had been born 
to believe that they had as good a right to the prop- 
erty as to the clothes upon their backs, it was a mere 
pittance to the government. Nobody would be taxed 
to pay it ; no person would lose by it. The government 
would have several thousand dollars surplus from the 
property after giving these persons the little bit which 
the bill proposed. It was, he said, an important matter 
to them, but a mere drop in the bucket to the govern- 
ment. He said : — *'The State of Arkansas is not ask- 
ing for the lands ; but citizens of Arkansas come to you 
asking you for this favor or gratuity, and many per- 
sons from various States of the Union. Hot Springs 
is now the most cosmopolitan city of its size in the 
world. I ask the Senate in all sincerity if this is exor- 
bitant, if this is an outrage either on justice or fair- 
ness, when you are trying to deal out equity to these 
people? I have more reason probably than any other 
man in public life to desire that there should be an end 
to the litigation of this trouble. For eighteen years, 
long before I was in the Senate, I was connected with 
the litigation in reference to Hot Springs, and I know 
every foot of this land. The place itself I love, and 
there I believe I am loved ; indeed this ground is my 
second home. Hence this feeling I manifest upon the 
subject." And the bill was passed. 

On March 23, the bill providing for the distribu- 
tion of the Geneva Award fund was up for considera- 
tion, upon which Mr. Garland spoke at considerable 
length. The act of 1874 had disposed of part of this 
fund, but there was a balance of nine and one-half 
million dollars left, and the question was, what should 



Augustus Hill Garland 41 

be done with that? Mr. Garland thought that when 
the facts were known as to how the United States 
got hold of this fund, they would be legally compelled 
to distribute it in a certain way. The money came to 
the Treasury as the result of the want of exercise of 
due diligence on the part of Great Britain in prevent- 
ing Confederate Cruisers from arming themselves and 
departing from her ports, and committing depredations 
on the property of the United States and its citizens. 
There was a dispute on this point between the United 
States and Great Britain. In order to settle it amica- 
bly and not go to war, it was determined to settle the 
matter by arbitration. A commission was appointed 
for this purpose, which sat at Geneva. The commis- 
sion met under certain hard and fast rules, which were 
to bind its conduct. The government made claims 
before the commission for destruction of her vessels 
and property, etc. ; and also private claims, for destruc- 
tion of those belonging to individuals. Now the coun- 
sel for the United States wished the Commission to 
pay her the indemnity fund, out of which she should 
distribute shares to her individual citizens who had 
suffered. 

Mr. Garland held that the United States received 
indemnity not for the benefit of the American govern- 
ment, as such, but for her citizens, as trustees for those 
citizens. This excluded everything except payment for 
direct losses or destruction of vessels and their cargoes 
by those cruisers (the Florida, Alabama, and Shenan- 
doah). The commission simply gave to the government 
a lump sum for individual losses, to be distributed by 
it, and including also the government losses, where the 
government had any proprietiary interest in ships 
destroyed by the inculpated cruisers. We quote, in 
part, from Mr. Garland's remarks : — 

"I do not know, so far as I am concerned, what bet- 



42 Augustus Hill Garland 

ter business the general government can be at than 
protecting her individual citizens who pay her taxes 
and fight her battles for her. I am not willing to write 
myself down for one as consenting to the doctrine that 
this government affords no protection to those people, 
simply because they have not a strictly legal right or a 
technical legal remedy. We cannot shelter ourselves 
behind the idea that the government cannot become an 
agent, a trustee. Has not Congress established a 
Court of Claims, in which an individual can sue the 
government? 

"The simple question now is, shall the fund be dis- 
tributed to the losers of those vessels and cargoes, and 
those persons who paid insurance thereon? This is the 
legal question. Now, will Congress execute the legal 
right, or will it set itself up to take in the unexplored 
field of charity or mercy, to find some object worthy of 
the bestowal of the fund? To pay just those who have 
a legal right, and if there is a surplus give that to those 
who suffered in consequence of the depredations of 
those cruisers, if you can get at them, is right. 

'*We have seen what high hopes have been placed in 
the commission at Geneva in the interests of peace to 
the civilized world. If this Congress or any other Con- 
gress disregards the arbitration, and says, 'We will dis- 
tribute this fund as we see proper, outside the com- 
press of the award,' this splendid hope and bright 
vision are gone forever, and we shall never have 
another international arbitration to settle the disputes 
of this kind. If the bill is not correct upon its merits 
and general principles, we have no right to this money 
at all, and had better send it back to England, for we 
hold it under false pretense." 

Mr. Garland spoke at other times when this bill was 
up again, and we quote again below from his further 
arguments on the subject. We do not quote it here. 



Augustus Hill Garland 43 

as it came in a later session of Congress, and would 
spoil the chronological order in which we are placing 
his speeches. 

On the bill "making appropriations to supply certain 
deficiencies in the appropriations for the services of 
the government for the year ending June 30, 1880," 
Mr. Garland spoke briefly on March 31, saying that 
Arkansas was deeply interested in the matter. The only 
complaint he had against the bill was that the amount 
it proposed was insufficient. Much money, he said 
was needed to clear out the swamps of Arkansas. 
The Swamps Land Act of September 28, 1880, granted 
swamp lands to the States. In perfecting these gifts 
the question had arisen as to what lands were swamp. 
He said that these disputes were unsettled, and many 
valuable lands were held up, their titles in abeyance, 
for want of adjustment. The appropriation of $6,000,- 
000, provided by the bill, was, he said, insufficient to 
complete the work. Let the government go forward 
manfully and settle these disputes. 

Mr. Garland, it will be remembered, had, two 
years before, introduced a bill providing that a 
commission be appointed to look into the matter 
of the tariff, and report to the Senate. He first 
spoke on the subject May 27, 1880. He had mtro- 
duced the bill, he said, simply to get .more accurate 
information about the then existing tariff ; how, if at 
all, it was unfit in its operation, and wherein it could 
be revised so as to cure these bad results. Complaints 
had been made that whatever law there was on the 
subject had not been enforced in its true spirit and 
meaning. Complaints were also made that the tariff 
system had been burdensome in the way of expense to 
the government. Mr. Garland said that the govern- 
ment had absolutely groaned under it. The existing 
tariff was enacted, he said, to defray the expenses of 
the war, and was a tariff springing from a spirit of 



44 Augustus Hill Garland 

retaliation, and not based upon justice. Every one 
argued that some tariff suitable to the interests of the 
country, and properly adjusted to them, should be 
adapted at the earliest possible time. It was to get 
such a movement on foot that he had introduced the 
bill, and he made speeches later on the tariff which, 
from the array of figures and facts presented, must 
have consumed much valuable time in their prepara- 
tion. 

A case showing how vigorously Mr. Garland stood 
up for his constituents at home, came up on June 12. 
Under the bill (H. R. No. 6325) ''making appropria- 
tions to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for 
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for prior 
years, and for other purposes," he made a resolution 
to pay Jas. F. Fagen, late marshal of the Western Dis- 
trict of Arkansas $2,116.27, the amount found to be 
due him as such marshal, at a trial had in the district 
court for the western district of Arkansas in 1879, 
in a suit by the United States on his official 
bond as such marshal. Fagan was marshal 
under the appointment of General Grant, and after 
his term of office expired the government instituted a 
suit in the district court on his official bond, for an 
amount alleged to be due to the United States, which 
Fagan had failed to pay over. Fagan appeared in the 
suit, and plead, amiong other things, an offset. After 
a long and exhaustive trial it was obtained by the ver- 
dict of the jury, that, instead of Fagan owing the Uni- 
ted States, the latter owed him the sum stated, on his 
transaction as marshal. 

But of course no judgment could be recovered 
against the United States for this money. A jury can 
find that the government owes money, but no court 
can render judgment upon the finding, except the 
Court of Claims, unless there be a special act confer- 



Augustus Hill Garland 45 

ring jurisdiction for that purpose. ''As a matter of 
course," said Mr. Garland, "it is not a judgment 
against the government, but it is a finding that it is 
that much in default to Fagan, and the whole matter 
is transferred to Congress for its disposal as it sees 
proper. You have the verdict of twelve men. There 
are only two ways that Fagan can get his money; 
either through an appropriation by Congress, or by 
having a special bill passed to send him to the Court of 
Claims, and put him through that tribunal, involving 
a delay of two or three years, and the cost of lawyers' 
fees, etc. Which will Congress do? It must appro- 
priate the money now, or it must compel him to pre- 
sent a bill for his special relief, and have it referred to 
the Committee on Claims to make him go through 
that process, or send him under a special act to the 
court of Claims. I have presented my resolution to the 
Senate. I do not want Mr. Fagan submitted to the 
process of coming here with a bill for his special relief 
and having the matter re-investigated, or to go to the 
Court of Claims and spend all his money to employ 
lawyers." And Mr. Garland's resolution was passed. 
In the next session of Congress, December, 1880 to 
March, 1881, Mr. Garland got a bill through Congress 
(S.Bill No. 711) "amending the charter of the Freed- 
man's Savings and Trust Company, and for other pur- 
poses." The bill was reported to the Special Committee 
on the Freedman's Savings and Trust Co., recommitted, 
reported back with an amendment, the amendment 
agreed to, and the bill passed by the Senate ; received, 
considered and passed by the House, examined and 
signed, and approved by the President. He also sub- 
mitted the following resolution, among many others, 
which was unanimously considered and agreed to:— 
"That the committee on Military Affairs be instructed 
to inquire whether the United States arsenal buildings 



46 Augustus Hill Garland 

and grounds at Little Rock, Ark., be not one of the 
forts *'of but slight value for military purposes," owing 
to the changed condition of the country, and the opera- 
tion of which is continued at great expense to the 
country, referred to in the President's last message ; 
and if the same cannot with proper regard to the ser- 
vice, be disposed of to Arkansas, and if so, upon what 
terms," 

Mr. Garland's attitude on the question of pensions 
is shown in a few well-chosen words, spoken on 
December 9. He said : "I stand here prepared in every 
instance to vote for an application for pension by a 
husband, unless it is shown that he had made on his 
part an expressed renunciation of the claim for it ; 
and I am not so sure but that in cases of that sort I 
should vote for his widow to get it, when he dies and 
she desires it; because these pensions are given some- 
what in the nature of a homestead right, and cannot 
be waived by the head of the family, the original party, 
but must be retained for the benefit of those who came 
after him. The case is none the less worthy, none the 
less meritorious because the husband failed to make 
the application himself. The matter of pensions is at 
least one of generosity, while to some extent it is one 
of justice. It is not a fixed and unyielding and unbend- 
ing rule, that because a person, under the existing 
pension laws, is not entitled to a fee, therefore Con- 
gress should not give it to him. Congress is the 
great repository of the power, and should exercise it 
with the utmost liberality, to those who claim as the 
widow in this case does." 

Mr. Garland spoke briefly, on December 6, on the bill 
to establish an educational fund, and apply a portion 
of the proceeds of the public lands to public education. 
He said : — ^'The system of aiding common schools by 
the government has been ingrafted in every conceiv- 



Augustus Hill Gaeland 47 

able plan of legislation, even antedating the Constitu- 
tion itself. From the splendid opinion of Judge Camp- 
bell in the case of Cooper vs. Robinson, there never 
has been a doubt of the power of the government to 
aid, foster, and do all that it can for the public schools. 
Congress has given lands to the States for internal 
impr'ovements. Certainly it has the right to appropri- 
ate them, or their proceeds, for the highest of all 
objects, the education of its citizens. Congress has 
the povv^er in the constitution; we have judicial decis- 
ions ; we have the precedent of legislation. The very 
best institution we have ever had in my state, the 
Industrial University at Fayetteville, which is now 
an ornament to the State and country, owes its birth, 
and in great part its growth, to the act of 1862. Arkan- 
sas lays a tax, a liberal one in her impoverished condi- 
tion ; and we have a good and promising system of 
free schools. The passage of the bill will prove a 
great help to her." 

But Mr. Garland did not believe that this fund 
should be given directly to the States; and he spoke 
against amendment to that effect. He argued that if 
the money be given directly in lump to the States, it 
would become mixed up in State politics, and instead 
of being a benefit bestowed, it would be an evil. There 
would be no limitations, with no one to account to, 
as to how the fund should be distributed. "The bene- 
fit immediately from this bill," he said, "will be small. 
No school-house will be built upon every hill-top in 
Arkansas and other states. We cannot at once take 
care of the great mass of ignorance thrown upon this 
country so suddenly by the war, but we propose to lay 
a foundation, by which after a while, as certainly as 
the needle points to the pole, we may redeem this 
ignorance in the South and in other portions of the 



48 Augustus Hill Garland 

country. We may heal it, but not by giving the fund 
directly." 

Mr. Garland was very fond of using humorous illus- 
trations, and employed them very often for emphasis. 
A case of this kind was the conclusion of his speech 
on the bill providing that a man named Ben Holladay 
*'be authorized to institute and prosecute an action in 
the Court of Claims against the United States, for 
the recovery of an amount of any seizure or destruction 
by hostile Indians of property owned by him and used 
in performing his contract with the government to 
transport the mails on the then overland mail route 
between the Missouri river and Salt Lake City, from 
1868 to November 3, 1876." Mr. Garland favored the bill 
in eloquent terms and with clear reasoning, consum- 
ing considerable time in speaking. He said he knew 
little or nothing of Holladay, but favored the bill 
because he thought it just. He considered it the first 
great duty of the government to do' justice to its citi- 
zens, and not keep them there asking for compensation, 
sending them from one court to another. He finished 
by telling of a man from Arkansas, named Ray, who 
was in Washington with a claim of $2,500 for the 
destruction of a steamboat, in the war, on the lower Red 
river, at the time when he (Garland) was there seeking 
his pardon from President Johnson. Ray thought he 
would get his money in a few days. Six years after 
Garland came back to the Supreme Court and Ray was 
still waiting. Six years after that Garland was sent to 
the Senate, and Ray was there on the same spot where 
he had left him six years before. Garland said : — 
"How are you, Ray? Have you got your claim?" "No," 
was the answer, "but I think I'll get it in a few days." 
After about two years Ray did get his claim, and when 
he paid his lawyer's fees and hotel bills he had $300.00 
left. Mr. Garland said that this was an actual fact. 



Augustus Hill Garland 49 

Another case showing- the great man's humorous 
nature took place on February lo. Mr. Pugh, of Ala- 
bama, had made a long and able presentation of facts 
and reasons favoring the expenditure of $1,000,000, 
under the direction of the Postmaster General, in the 
establishment of mail steamship lines, to be distributed 
among the Atlantic, Gulf, Mexican and Pacific ports. 
Mr. Garland had intended to speak on it, but after Mr. 
Pugh's speech he arose and said : — "The masterly pre- 
sentation of the case to which we have just listened 
relieves me of the necessity of saying anything at all. 
I could not add anything. I simply point to the speech 
as the man did who had a prayer copied at the head of 
his bed, so as to save time, simply saying, when he 
went to bed, 'Lord, those are my sentiments.' " 

In the special session of March 4 to May 20 and 
October 10 to October 29, 1881, Mr. Garland was 
again appointed on the committees on the Judiciary 
and on Territories, and also on the select committee 
on Epidemic Diseases. 

A speech showing Mr. Garland's love and appeal for 
principle above politics, and right and justice above 
party lines, is given almost in full. The special session 
had been called by President Hayes, President Garfield 
delivered his inaugural address, etc. On March 24 
the question of electing new officers — Secretary, Ser- 
geant-at-Arms, Door-keeper, Chief Clerk, Principle 
Executive Clerk, and Chaplain, was up for discussion. 
The Republicans had gone so far as to assume the 
right of electing new officers, or re-organizing the Sen- 
ate for a special Executive Session, just as is done at 
the beginning of a new session ; and had presented 
names for these officers to the other side of the House 
for consideration. The right was by that side disputed. 
The Republicans held that the question of changing 
the officers was not a problem of the efficiency or ineffi- 



50 Augustus Hill Garland 

ciency of the existing officers, but whether they (the 
Republicans) had the numerical strength to change 
them ; and claimed that if they had this power they 
also had the right to do it. Mr. Garland said : — 

*'As to the procedure that is asked for here of elect- 
ing new officers for the Senate, my impression is that 
it has not been the custom of the Senate to change its 
officers at executive session. It has done so at extra 
sessions of Congress ; but the existing officers at the 
close of a Congress have always continued through an 
executive session following it. 

''But I wish to speak to the Senate of what goes 
beyond and above the mere question of party power or 
party success. Until last Monday a week ago there 
were not half a dozen men on the face of the earth 
who knew for a certainty what the complexion of the 
Senate would be on casting its vote on any proposition. 
Upon the revealing of that fact I have nothing to say. 
These are matters that gentlemen must take care of for 
themselves, with a proper regard for their constitu- 
ency and their accountability to them. The mixtures 
and intermixtures of political bedfellows are like the 
verdicts of petit-jurors, among the unaccountable 
things — and life is too short for me to undertake now a 
diagnosis of the matter. But there is the fact before 
us that a number of gentlemen, officials of this Senate, 
who are acceptable, against none of whom can a sin- 
gle charge be brought, either of malfeasance of misfeas- 
ance or of non-feasance in office, upon a sudden, not 
even a respectable justice of the peace's notice, are 
called upon to take up their beds and walk, without a 
day's preparation, without a moments notice compared 
with wdiat should be given them. These gentlemen have 
been here now nearly two years, some of them depend- 
ing for nearly every particle of bread that they get 
upon their small salary which they receive here ; and 




The Hubbard Residence— Washington, Ark. 



Augustus Hill Garland 51 

they are called upon suddenly to leave, without any- 
where to go, like the Son of Man, who, as it was said 
in the Scriptures, hath not where to lay his head. 

"I appeal to both sides of this Chamber. I am not 
speaking for party now at all, but I am speaking for 
these gentlemen who have demeaned themselves as 
faithful servants. Do not inflict an injury on these 
gentlemen — and probably an irreparable injury — for 
life. It is a matter of but a few days at best; and if 
an extra session of Congress is called, (which God in 
His wisdom forbid as one of the calamities to the coun- 
try), you may then go forward and elect your officers, 
but now you will strike down some of the best officials 
the country has ever had, for a little gain of possibly a 
week or two, or a few months at most. It is not, seri- 
ously, my brother Senators, a subject worthy of your 
consideration. Let us see if there is not something 
decent and respectable at least, irrespective of party 
discipline or party whip, where we may meet together 
on a common ground and let this matter go over until 
the regular session. I do not wish to be drawn into 
a contest of this sort here, I do not, for the sake of the 
country, for the sake of all parties, desire it; and I 
ask you in the name of justice to these gentlemen who 
have had this short notice, to spare them a little more 
time. It is not simply because you have the numerical 
power that you have the right and should exercise it. 

" 'Oh ! 'tis excellent 

To have a giant's strength ; but tyrannous 

To use it like a giant.' " 

At the session of 1881-2, Mr. Garland Vv^as retained 
on the standing committees on the Judiciary and on 
Territories, and on the special committee on Epidemic 
Diseases ; and was appointed as a conferree on the bill 



53 Augustus Hill Garland 

(H. R. 4166) to divide Iowa into judicial districts. 
During this session he got a bill through Congress (S. 
Bill No. 219) entitled ''a bill for the relief of Rebecca 
Wright, widow of James Wright, a soldier in the War 
of 1812." He introduced many other bills, and mostly 
for the relief of certain people in his State. Many of 
them got through the Senate and to the House and 
some got no further than the committees to which they 
were entrusted for report. Besides these, he presented 
many petitions from people of Arkansas, some of 
which are : From citizens of Arkansas, for relief to suf- 
ferers from the overflow of the Mississippi ; from 
Joseph Cossart and others of Clark County, pray- 
ing for an appropriation for improvements on the 
Ouachita river in Arkansas ; from citizens of Drew 
County, for aid to Education ; from citizens of Eureka 
Springs, for the erecting of a hospital there ; from citi- 
zens of Fort Smith, for the donation by the govern- 
ment of the military reservation there, for school pur- 
poses ; from citizens of Little Rock, for the improve- 
ment of the Arkansas river; for a liberal improvement 
of the Hot Springs Reservation; from the Arkansas 
W. C. T. U. for General Prohibition; and from the 
Hot Springs Woman's Library Association, to erect a 
building. Nearly all of the bills which he introduced 
also had reference to the good of his State. 

On December 12, 1881, Mr. Garland was up again 
speaking on the tariff, and he again spoke at great, 
length. The matter, as was cited above, w^as before the 
Senate on May 20, 1880, and even as early as May 
1878, when Mr. Garland first entered that body. Owing 
to the importance of the question of revising the tariff 
at that time, and as showing Mr. Garland's attitude on 
that great national issue, his speech is herewith given, 
in part : — 

'The schedule of the present tariff, its confused 



Augustus Hill Garland 53 

terms of law, the codification of the laws, the digest, 
the decision thereupon, together with the importance 
of the subject-matter of the revenue itself — these com- 
bine to show, outside of the reasons formerly adduced, 
the necessity for some kind of action. 

''The Constitution provides that the House shall 
originate bills for revenue. But the notion of protec- 
tion always comes, whether directly or indirectly, as 
a tail to that feature in the Constitution referring to 
revenue. 

"A tariff, when fairly and justly levied, has always 
been a favorite way of raising revenue. But when a 
citizen is called upon to pay tax to the government, 
it should be in proportion to the ability of the citizen 
to pay. This maxim is violated in every tariff act 
which is originated for protection. 

'T do not want absolute free trade. Some authors 
and public speakers claim that this will be the doctrine 
of all countries. So it is with the millenium or any 
other good time, when those animals we read of in the 
Bible shall lie down together and there shall be war no 
more. But as a practical question, there is no party 
favoring absolute free trade. 

''A.s a matter of course, in the collection of revenue, 
under a wise and proper dispensation, the protection 
which follows must necessarily be allowed. There 
must be a margin for it : there is no question on that 
point. The exercising of many powers given in bulk 
to the Constitution carries with it incidents which are 
unavoidable, though not expressly granted. Neither 
the doctrine of protection, per se, nor free trade, has a 
resting place in this country, in my judgment; but the 
proper medium is to rest between the two, in the 
exercise of the revenue power by Congress ; by a 'judi- 
cious system of tariff,' as General Jackson termed it. 

"A system of protection leads to monopolies, and 



54 Augustus Hill Garland 

such as are now pressing on this country beyond all 
powers combined, to its detriment and its injury. It 
may be covert; it may be secret; but it steps and 
marches to that as certainly as water will seek its level. 

"We should have a consistant tariff law, we should 
have our tariff suit of clothes cut down more properly 
to our dimensions at this time, rather than wear them 
as they were ten or fifteen years ago. I want the whole 
system revised and placed in a compact and digesti- 
ble form, so that it may show itself when it is read 
and examined. 

"I am not ready to agree that the ever-present pros- 
perity is due to the protective tariff. I have great 
reason to doubt, if not to deny it. Nearly everyone who 
has a hobby is willing to attribute prosperity to it. The 
country has lived and always will live, in spite of all 
this legislation." 

Again, on March 23, 1882, Mr. Garland said : — 'T 
never could see, in my reading and understanding of 
the Constitution, how Congress could proceed to col- 
lect a tax except for revenue to meet the exigencies of 
the government. I believe as sincerely as I believe 
anything that a connected argument upon that subject, 
from the first breath of Hamilton, on through Madi- 
son, down to the present time, taking all the public 
men of the past, could be established beyond any ques- 
tion, to show that the sole and only power is to levy 
that tax or tariff, and that revenue is the sole and only 
purpose of its levying. It is for revenue, and for rev- 
enue only — the present tariff was made as a war meas- 
ure for the purposes of war, and necessarily had to be 
unjustly discriminating toward certain industries and 
interests." 

Mr. Garland again advocated a mixed commission to 
examine the tariff, composed of members of the Senate 
and House, v/ith three outsiders, making nine in all. 



Augustus Hill Garland 55 

His purpose was that, when the results of the inves- 
tigation should be returned to Congress, there would 
be some gentlemen on the floor of each House already- 
trained to explain it to the others. The aim, he thought, 
ought to be to prevent the government from fostering 
any enterprises with which she has no national, no 
federal, concern. It was for the sake of improving pri- 
vate conditions and private fortunes. However, his 
amendment as to the way the commission should be 
made up was lost by a small majority of votes. 

On February 9, Mr. Garland spoke again on the sub- 
ject of pensions, giving still clearer statements than 
those in the speech on the subject, quoted from above. 
This time he spoke on the resolution declaratory 
against the repeal of the ''Arrears of Pensions" Act. He 
said, in part : — 

''This resolution is a plain common-sense statement 
of the proposition that if soldiers establish their claims 
to pensions, the pensions shall run from the time when 
their right or cause of action accrued, and that they 
shall not be compelled to wait until their children and 
their children's children are old and infirm before they 
receive their pensions. This is of course a just statute. 
I do not think Congress can seriously contemplate 
the repeal of this law on account of the great expense 
to the government, or on account of frauds occasioned 
by many persons getting pensions who do not deserve 
them. If the right to the pension exists, it is not 
worth while to talk of the cost, and especially since 
on all sides it is admitted that we are fully able to 
meet the expense. If frauds exist, let us try to find 
and weed them out. 

"Our Civil War certainly grew into one of gigantic 
proportions, and became a public war, and controlled 
by the principle of public wars. The Supreme Court 
has constantly held that it was a war in which the 



56 Augustus Hill Garland 

existence of a country was at stake, and was to be 
considered in principle as if it had been carried on 
against Great Britain, France, and other powers com- 
bined. These soldiers, going into battle to gamble 
their lives away against balls of fire, saved the coun- 
try — a country of which all of our are citizens united 
at this time ; and the glory and prowess of these sol- 
diers are the glory and prowess of all parts of the land ; 
and as one of the vanquished, as one of those who went 
down in that conflict, I am not ashamed to acknowl- 
edge the propriety of voting these pensions. If they 
were the victors over us, I yield because I believe no 
other power on earth could have been the victors over 
us. I know of none more deserving and more meritori- 
ous than the soldiers who fight the battles of this coun- 
try ; and there is not a soldier of the Confederacy that 
I know of, but what is willing to see these men paid, 
and freely and cheerfully so. That is the sentiment of 
the country I represent. If the tide of battles had gone 
in the other direction, if our flag had floated forward 
instead of backward, we would have voted anything to 
those soldiers who won that fight; and if our soldiers 
are not pensioned, it is the fate of war. It is a risk 
which they took with the rest of us ; and they bear 
their fortunes manfully in this, as they bared their 
hearts to danger during the war. There is no pro- 
fession on earth that is not better paid than soldiery. 
I cannot afford, for one, to turn back because there 
may be frauds in the matter. If there be frauds it is 
a sad commentary on the law-making power that we 
cannot unkennel these frauds and strangle them." 

Probably no words ever uttered by Mr. Garland in 
the Senate of the United States are more touching 
than his tribute to the dead senator from Wisconsin, 
Matthew H. Carpenter, the brilliant lawyer who had 
voluntarily and without remuneration helped Mr. Gar- 



Augustus Hill Garland 57 

land with his big case before the Supreme Court in 
1866, and who had, on several occasions, befriended 
Arkansas. Mr. Garland had said of him at that time : 
"He was the very picture of striking- manhood, his 
star was rapidly rising to its zenith, and great and 
brilliant intellectuality was stamped in unmistakable 
characters upon his face." 

At his death Mr. Garland's eulogium was touching 
and beautiful, and full of allusions. We quote from 
the closing paragraphs : — 

"In cursory reading a little while ago, Mr. President, 
I found a sentence, said to have been his pro- 
duction, which gives forth his view upon this thing 
we call life. It is this: The loves and friendships of 
individuals partaking of the frail character of human 
life may be shortly summed up : a little loving and a 
good deal of sorrowing; some bright hopes and many 
bitter disappointments ; some gorgeous Thursdays and 
many dismal Fridays ; some high ambitions and many 
Waterloo defeats, until the heart becomes like a char- 
nal-house, filled with dead affections, embalmed in holy 
but sorrowful memories : and then the cord is loosened, 
the golden bowl is broken, the individual life is a cloud, 
a vapor that passeth away.' 

"Probably this was the inspiration of one of those 
moments of sadness that at times come to us all. But 
it is a faithful summary at the last. His life, with its 
share of sorrows and trials and crosses, is full of good 
examples and noble encouragement to the young men 
of the land. Born and reared with no wealth, with no 
previous family name or prestige to rest upon, alone 
with his own great mind and energies, he rose from 
the very ground-work of society, and became one of 
the wonderful men of this wonderful age and country. 
On more than one ocassion did he serve in her trou- 
bles the State that honors me with a seat here; and 



58 Augustus Hill Garland 

the people of that State have a kind and tender remem- 
berance of him, which will not be dimmed with the 
coming and going of the years. His loss to his coun- 
try is great, and to his friends and family beyond esti- 
mate ; but to all let the hope come that the tear-drop 
of sorrow that is shed today will be caught up and 
made to glow and sparkle in the rainbow of promise of 
tomorrow — without which hopes life's burdens and 
changes would be unbearable. His name and fame will 
be treasured tenderly in the land, and 'his memorial 
shall not depart away.' " 

On the question of Chinese immigration Mr. Garland 
made a speech of considerable length on March 3, 
showing by argument and references to decisions of 
the United States Supreme Court and district courts, 
that the matter of legislating to exclude the Chinese, 
was a matter for Congress and not the States to per- 
form. The acts of the States on the matter had been 
declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, he 
argued, and he quoted from Justice Field, showing 
that the matter was for Congress to act upon. He 
thought that the amendment under consideration, pro- 
hibiting the further naturalization of Chinese, ought 
to be adopted. 

The bill to establish a Court of Appeals was dis- 
cussed at great length in the sessions of May 2nd to 
5th, and Mr. Garland spoke on each of these days. He 
stated that the purpose of these courts was, that they 
were to be localized and the proceedings brought home 
to the bosom and business of the people. The circuit 
judges who were to hold these courts already existed 
to some extent, and it was intended by the bill that the 
courts should be held to a particular locality, so that 
the judges might familiarize themselves with the juris- 
prudence, law and judicial policy of that particular sec- 
tion of the country. A proviso was introduced that no 



Augustus Hill Garland 59 

circuit or district judge before whom a case or ques- 
tion had been tried or heard in the district or circuit 
court below, should sit on the trial or hearing of such 
a case or question in the proposed appelate court. Mr. 
Garland favored this, and said that it was simply an 
oversight that it had not been put in the original bill. 
He said : 'The idea is not founded as much on the 
pride of opinion of the judge as it is on a pure and 
simple question of justice to the litigant who appeals. 
When he appeals a case, as he would in this court, to 
six judges, he opens his case in the appelate court with 
one of the six judges against him, and to that extent 
he is denied a fair trial. Jurisprudence is the adminis- 
tration of justice according to the law. In the best 
days of Roman jurisprudence, they even tried all cases 
under a fictitious name. An upright judge has nothing 
in the world to do with knowing the parties in the 
court below. If one judge has already expressed his 
opinion, I do not care how able he may be, from Mar- 
shal down to the smallest mian that ever disgraced a 
bench, it is human nature at least for him to contend 
for his own opinion." 

On May 5, Mr. Garland spoke at great length, 
and his speech must have cost him many hours 
of w^ork in preparation. He said that early in 
his senatorial career he had introduced a bill to 
change the Judiciary by establishing these inter- 
mediary courts, and that corporations in one State but 
doing business in another, if sued by the latter, should 
not have the privilege of removing the case to the 
United States Supreme Court. He said : "The import- 
ance and gravity of the question cannot be overesti- 
mated. "We are now dealing with a very weighty sub- 
ject, and the country is deeply interested in it. The 
repeal of all jurisdiction of the United States Courts 
over these municipal and quasi-municipal corporations 



60 Augustus Hill Garland 

is demanded by the necessities of the time, and is in 
strict account with the judicial system of the United 
States, organized by the Constitution and the Act of 
1789 in pursuance hereof." Here followed a list of 
references to decisions of the Supreme Court in the 
matter. The earliest decisions showed that corpora- 
tions are not ''citizens" within the meaning of the Con- 
stitution, and hence cannot sue or be sued in a United 
States Court. Subsequent decisions, however, contra- 
dicted these. Mr. Garland said : "We have these con- 
tradictory decisions before us, to determine whether 
the one position is right, or the other. It is a decision 
which comes at last by construction. Anyway, if Con- 
gress gave to the Federal Courts jurisdiction over such 
cases as these, it can certainly take it away. Now, 
what is the reason why these corporations made under 
the State law, these quasi-municipal and municipal 
corporations, should have a place in the United States 
Courts? They are made under the State Lavv^s ; they 
are purely parts and parcels of the State's machinery, 
for the purpose of local government. Then why the 
necessity of going into the United States Courts, when 
you simply change your form ? Upon any ground you 
may take it, as a pure question of right, these institu- 
tions should never have a place in the Courts of the 
United States. They should not be permitted to be sued 
there or remove their suits brought against them in 
the State Courts, when these suits are brought in the 
particular location where they are created by the 
States. I have thought on this question long and 
deliberately and patiently, and I think that these 
courts of appeal are necessary. With the vast increase 
of the business of the judiciary, with the vast addition 
of territory to the country, with all these questions as 
to public lands, questions of commerce brought about 
by the railroads, telegraphs, and such, I do not believe 



Augustus Hill Garland 61 

that the present judicial force will be sufficient, even if 
these courts are established." (Here followed an his- 
torical review citing opinions of men, bills to relieve 
the Supreme Court of circuit court duties, and acts 
extending the judiciary system, establishing new 
courts, etc., etc. Letters had been flooding Congress, 
asking for greater judicial force, etc.) 

"Mr. President, think for a moment of the purpose 
of the act. It is not to establish principles of law, it 
is not to find the actual standard of right and wrong; 
but it is simply to say what the law is in a given case. 
It is not to write law-books for the profession ; it is 
not to encourage litigation. Judges should not write 
law-books full of needless discussions. If I had my 
way, I would take the opinions back to the time of 
Coke, simply declaring that the facts in the case are 
such and such in the law ; and I would not compel the 
judges to search from Colorado to Arkansas and then 
to New York, for some authority on the particular 
case. The purpose of a court is to establish what 
the law is in the particular case, and where the right is. 

'T know that any bill of this sort will meet with 
objections ; all bills do. This is something of a pio- 
neer experiment ; it is yet to be tested ; it is to be tried 
in the crucible to see whether it will stand. After 
long and laborious examination of the question, I 
have laid before the Senate my honest convictions in 
reference to the v/hole question. 

''Lawyers in my State and all others are clamoring 
for some relief. The Court of Appeals will take part 
of the rapidly increasing business of the country from 
the Supreme Court, and will act as a guard against 
bad judges in the lower courts. This will bring relief 
for some time to come — how long we cannot tell, 
because the country is growing, and it is an illustration 
at last of the fact that governments are not made, 



62 Augustus Hill Garland 

but grow as the country grows. I have stated hon- 
estly, fairly, and candidly to the Senate my views ; 
with the additions and suggestions I have stated on it, 
I hope the bill now before the Senate will pass." 

On May 22nd and 23rd, the Geneva Award Bill was 
up again, and Mr. Garland spoke again at some length, 
re-expressing his views, and enforcing the idea again 
that the matter should properly be referred to the 
Court of Claims, holding that that would be a legiti- 
mate solution of the matter and one with which all 
parties concerned would be satisfied. 

On the bill to construct Mississippi River levees, 
which he himself introduced, Mr. Garland spoke at 
great length on March 15 and April 19. The bill 
provided for an appropriation by Congress of $15,000,- 
000. Mr. Garland argued that the matter was of 
national importance, and national in its nature. 'The 
Mississippi is an inland sea," he said. "When the 
Southern States attempted to dissever themselves from 
the Union, no more powerful argument than the hold- 
ing of the Mississippi prevailed against the success of 
those States. 

'Tf a levee system is kept up in one way in Arkan- 
sas, in other ways in Mississippi, Tennessee, and 
Louisiana, it would be worse than no system at all. 
If these States had the authority to do this, they could 
not do it by conjunction or agreement, and hence are 
not able to meet this exigency. 

"The Federal government would not yield the pos- 
session of this great river, in spite of all the forces the 
civilized world could muster and control ; and if this 
river may be regarded in a certain sense as the prop- 
erty of the Federal government, why should it allow the 
states to build levees on it? The loss by the great 
flood of 1874, was the overflow of ten million acres of 
land, in the rich cotton, sugar and corn country. The 



Augustus Hill Garland 63 

recent overflow will cause a loss of at least one-third 
more, and will reach $30,000,000. When you come to 
measure the damages, there can be no estimate. If 
a failure of the cotton crop ensues from the overflow, 
not even our financial committee can estimate the loss 
to the whole country, not merely to Arkansas, Tennes- 
see, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri, but to all 
comxmercial points and centers of business. 

''It is necessary to proceed at once to give aid and 
start the building of levees, because, when the water 
recedes, thousands Vv^ill have to wait three or four 
vv^eeks before they can break up the ground to begin 
work ; and if the government starts the work it can 
give employment to those thousands until that time. 
I say it with a serious conviction in my mind, that the 
splendid cotton country ranging from Crittenden 
County, Arkansas, to New Orleans, will have to be 
abandoned ultimately unless some assistance of this 
sort be given. The people will have to go to the poor 
hills. Fifty thousand people are houseless and shelter- 
less, driven out and exiled. A great many of these, 
it is true, are colored people, v/ho are fitted for that 
work by nature and by their calling in life, and in 
whose good strong arm there is more honest work 
than in any other known on the face of the earth. 
These are people needing to be provided for. Is is not 
time to do more than Congress has already generously 
done, in voting for temporary supplies for these suf- 
fering people, to institute the work and commence giv- 
ing these poor men something to do immediately on 
the going down of the water?" 

When Mr. Garland's bill had been returned by the 
Committee on Improvements of the Mississippi, that 
committee recommended $5,000,000, only one-third of 
what the bill asked for. Mr. Garland thereupon spoke 



64 Augustus Hill Garland 

again, long and earnestly, showing that five millions 
was not enough : — 

'The President (Mr. Arthur) turned his face toward 
the sun in his message, in not mentioning sections of 
the Rebellion, just as the great Lincoln did, when he 
requested his band, after he had taken the sword of 
Lee, 'to play Dixie; it is ours also.' He was not 
afraid of the slanders ; he could hear that song played 
which had stirred men to battle and caused valorous 
hearts to kill his comrades. So President Arthur is 
not afraid of any scarecrow of the Rebellion, and is 
willing to restore the country ravaged by it. 

''Is it economy to ask us to dribble on here from 
time to time with a little appropriation, as though we 
were clearing out a duck pond or a cat-fish pond in 
Arkansas? Why help the men of these injured states? 
Because they are citizens of this country. If they 
honestly fought for what they thought to be right, 
they had been overcome and have quit. Here is a 
great man standing at the head of the Republican 
party who says so; and whether either House of Con- 
gress allows it or not the country will applaud it 
to the echo. 'Time at last makes all things even' : no 
question of that. I make the appeal upon the direct 
right, law, justice, morals, common sense and con- 
science. The money is there in the treasury, received 
from the tax on the cotton from this great valley ; and 
we ask you simply to give us part of it back. There 
are sixty-eight million dollars in the treasury collected 
from the Cotton Tax. Give us a mere pittance of one- 
fourth. We are entitled to it. I have never belonged to 
the school of strict constructionists. I have always 
belonged to that school that fights for a sensible con- 
struction ; and this is the sensible construction given 
by Mr. Calhoun. If you can give land, can you not 
give money? It was reached by Congress in the acts 



Augustus Hill Garland 65 

of 1849 ^^^ 1850, and is reached by the Executive 
today. 

"1 want now to take all the chances there are under 
the report of the commission, like the man did, who, 
when he became seriously ill, sent for a preacher of 
every denomination, that he might have all the chances 
at going to heaven. I have on my table letters that 
would draw tears of blood from the hearts of men, if 
read, relative to the disastrous scenes which have 
accompanied the overflow that has come upon this 
country. We are poor. We may be poor through our 
own mismanagement and mistakes and faults, but we 
are poor. The States cannot build these levees now 
as they did in 1850. We need one uniform, compact 
system, and under the same authority, I beg Senators 
opposed to a large appropriation to come now and take 
a patriotic and magnanimous view of this whole sub- 
ject. We are not working for today; nor for one sec- 
tion of the country ; but for all time, and all the people 
of the earth. * "^ * The life of man is short, and events 
come thick and fast, and hurry on. In ten years from 
this day, if the appropriation of $15,000,000 is not 
made, I predict that Congress will vote fifty millions 
as cheerfully as they would vote five now. There is 
an urgent necessity for this work." 

However, a little later, when it v/as apparent that 
Congress would not appropriate the full amount, Mr. 
Garland withdrew his amendment asking again for fif- 
teen millions, saying that though he regretted to do 
it, he would nevertheless content himself for the pres- 
ent with five millions. 

During the next session of Congress (1882-3) Mr. 
Garland managed to get three bills to pass both 
Houses. They were as follows : 

A bill (S. Bill No. 2239) ''granting right of way 
for railroad purposes and telegraph lines through the 



66 Augustus Hill Garland 

lands of the United States included in the military res- 
ervation at Fort Smith, Ark." Introduced by Mr. Gar- 
land and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, 
reported back and passed the Senate, considered and 
passed by the House, examined and signed, and 
approved by the President. 

A bill (S. Bill No. 2305) ''authorizing the commis- 
sioner of the Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust 
Company to examine certain claims against said com- 
pany and to pay certain dividends barred by the act of 
February 21, 1881, and for other purposes." Introduced 
by Mr. Garland and referred to the Committee on 
Finance, reported back, amended, and passed by the 
Senate, passed by the House, examined and signed, and 
approved by the President. 

A bill (S. Bill No. 2412) ''to encourage the holding 
of a World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Expo- 
sition in 1884." Introduced by Mr. Garland and 
referred to the Committee on Agriculture, reported 
back, amended, and passed by the Senate, passed by 
the House, examined and signed, and approved by 
the President. 

In the early part of the session Mr. Garland spoke 
at considerable length favoring the act providing for 
a uniform bankruptcy law in the United States. We 
shall not give all his arguments here, as they v/ould 
perhaps be tedious and uninteresting. They are marked 
by a wealth of citations from history, cases in courts, 
etc. ; and show a great deal of study and detailed labor 
on the subject. The debate lasted practically a month. 
Mr. Garland said, in his concluding speech : "I believe 
there is a general necessity in this country for a stand- 
ing and fixed bankruptcy act. The jurisdiction was 
given to Congress, and in view of what the different 
States have done. Congress has seen proper from time 
to time to pass bankruptcy acts, so that the creditor 



Augustus Hill Garland 67 

from Georgia, the creditor from Arkansas, and the 
creditor from Ohio may all stand on an equal foot- 
ing when they come into the court to have an estate 
of an insolvent distributed. That there is no great 
pressing demand for a bankruptcy act novv^, I do 
believe; but if you put it upon that ground simply, 
it is the very reason why the man in the song of the 
'Arkansas Traveler' did not cover his house. He 
could not cover it wdien it was raining, and he didn't 
want to cover it when it was not raining, because then 
it didn't need it. If we wait until we get a stampede, 
cry, demand, and rush for such an act, the result will 
be that we shall get a patch work as we did in 1867; 
so that in six or seven years there will not be a show 
left of the original act, and we shall not even know 
out of what material it has been made. Now is the 
time to make the act, in time of peace, while there is 
no commotion and no distress in the country for such 
a special act." 

In arguing for Civil Service Reform, on December 
2^, Mr. Grant went into considerable detail to 
show the restless state of the country. He said : 

'Tf I had to interpret and summarize what was the 
cause of the verdict rendered by the people in the 
recent election, I would say that the country has 
become tired and restless and sore under the manage- 
ment of it in the harness and armor of war instead of 
that of peace. The country is like a man that is aged, 
lying upon one side for hours, who becomes restless 
and turn over on the other side so that he may enjoy 
his sleep and comfort further. It is like David 
equipped in the armor of Saul ; it is encumbered and 
oppressed, and must necessarily sink under it. The 
legislation that was originated in time of arms to save 
the life of the country, as was said, is now the legisla- 
tion for this time of peace ; and that is the complaint of 



68 Augustus Hill GtArland 

the country. This restlessness is not merely local, nor 
confined to one State. It is electricity all along the 
line; and — 

'From peak to peak, the rattling- crags among. 
Leaps the live Thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue. 
And Juno answers, through her misty shroud. 
Back to the Gorgeous Alps, who call to her aloud !' 

*'If there is no party adequate to the country's 
demand, it will create one. It may not be the Repub- 
lican party nor the Democratic party. Octavious had 
a pary at one time in Rome, and Anthony had a party ; 
but Rome had no party. It may be that here the inter- 
ests of the country have no party. The verdict of the 
election may impart that, and if the Democratic party, 
now that it has these successes, addresses itself seri- 
pusly and earnestly to this work, it will receive the 
applause and approbation of the country. If it does 
not it will not, and the country will seek a party which 
will accommodate itself to its demands." 

A little later Mr. Garland said, referring more 
directly to the bill : ''It is a mistaken idea that we can 
introduce a reform in this matter or any other, without 
hurting or affecting somebody. If we stood still and 
waited for the time to come to introduce reforms 
when nobody could be affected by them, we should 
never have one. The very demand and clamor for 
reform arises from the fact that some of the govern- 
ment officials need cleaning out. I for one believe 
that there are more employees in the government than 
there ought to be. I should like to cut down what I 
conceive to be the supernumerary of officials through- 
out the departments, who were put there by the neces- 
sities of war." 



Augustus Hill Garland 69 

In the session of 1883-4, Mr. Garland was again 
appointed on the Judiciary Committee, the Committee 
on Territories, and the Committee on Epidemic Dis- 
eases ; and was also placed on the Committee on Revo- 
lutionary Claims. During this session he was called 
several times to take the Vice-President's chair. 

Out of the great raft of bills introduced by Mr. Gar- 
land at this session, only one got through both Houses 
of Congress, though many passed the Senate. It was 
a bill (S. Bill No. 1369) '*to prevent and punish the 
counterfeiting within the United States of notes, 
bonds, or other securities of foreign governments." It 
was introduced by Mr. Garland and referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary, reported back, passed the 
Senate, passed the House, examined and signed, and 
approved by the President. 

Many of the petitions that he had presented in 
former sessions, and which had failed to be acted on 
and granted, he presented again in this, his last, ses- 
sion of the Senate. 

Mr. Garland favored the bill providing that Con- 
gress give relief by appropriation toward eliminating 
the foot and mouth cattle disease in Kansas. He spoke 
on this bill March 14, 1884. He believed that Con- 
gress had the constitutional power to give this aid. He 
said, in part: 

"You present me a calamity that is general in its 
character, and threatening to the country, that the 
local and domestic authorities cannot meet, and I 
vote to afford relief v/ith as clear a conscience as I ever 
voted for any measure. If I did not believe we have 
the constitutional power there is no sympathy in my 
bosom — I believe I am as sympathetic as most men — 
that would induce me to violate the oath I took at 
yonder desk to support the Constitution. I act accord- 



70 Augustus Hill Garland 

ting to my interpretation of that instrument which I 
have sworn to support. 

"Here is an industry now that is threatened with 
a prostration which will be worse than the failure of 
crops to the people who suffer from it; and it is not 
worth while to say, 'wait till the blow is struck and 
calamity done ; then relieve it.' The sound of the fire 
bell is unpleasant, especially when you have to get up 
at night to go out and suppress the fire and endeavor 
to save life and property. We had better take precau- 
tions in advance, and not wait till these people come 
crippled here and say, 'Our industry is gone.' 

"The power comes under the 'general welfare' clause 
of the Constitution. Where do you get the authority 
to build a Library Building? To erect the statues of 
great men, whose reputation in life has been won in 
killing their human brethren? Where did you get the 
power to give relief to the sufferers from the Missis- 
sippi flood? You got it under this clause, and nowhere 
else. Judge Story does not say that the 'general wel- 
fare' power in the Constitution rests upon any other 
power or is connected with it; it is an independent 
power. I read from the Constitution of the Confed- 
erate States where that was omitted for the express rea- 
son, as gentlemen of that school believed, that that 
power ought to rest upon other powers and be depen- 
dent on them ; and they incorporated in that Constitu- 
tion what is considered a fair and just interpretation 
of the Constitution of the United States upon this 
question. 

"Judge Story, in adopting the language of Monroe 
and other presidents, adopts the language, first, begin- 
ning with Mr. Hamilton in his report on manufactures 
in 1 791, and even that of Mr. Jefferson himself, who 
was the father of what we understand as the 'States' 
Rights' School, who worshiped States' Rights as 



Augustus Hill Garland 71 

devotedly as ever the Persian bowed before the eternal 
fires of the sky. 

**This matter of eliminating this cattle disease is 
public or it is nothing. It is either a myth, a ghost, 
or it is general and p,ublic in its character. We have 
construed the Constitution, we have applied it time 
after time, year after year. It is now too late to say 
that we cannot apply it in this instance, when our 
country is threatened with a cattle disease. It is too 
late to question the authority. It is there, written in 
the text, for what is understood as the text is a part of 
it. It is written in the precedents which have become 
part of the law of the country. 

''When we deal with this subject it branches into 
questions affecting commerce between the States. If 
we could, by some organic power, say that the cattle 
of Kansas alone would be affected by this measure, 
and none of any other State, we might get a resting 
place for the argument, but that cannot be done 
because it is a contagious disease. 

"I have attempted to show that we have the author- 
ity to give help, under a fair, legitimate construction 
of the constitution ; and by the precedents of former 
acts, it is put beyond any cavil or dispute." 

Probably Mr. Garland's greatest speech in the Sen- 
ate of the United States was his masterly argument 
of March 24, toward the close of the session, upon 
the bill (S. Bill No. 398) "to aid in the establishment 
and temporary support of common schools." The 
speech of Mr. Garland was on the amendment to the 
bill, (and involving substantially its merits) of Mr. 
Harrison of Indiana. In this great argument, we think, 
more than in any other debate in which he partici- 
pated, he added the power of his great abilities as a 
constitutional lawyer to his ever-great earnestness and 
enthusiasm. The bill provided for the making of 



72 Augustus Hill Garland 

appropriations by Congress for the extermination of 
illiteracy in the states. It proposed to give $15,000,000 
at once for the purpose, and diminish it by $1,000,000 
every year for ten years, v^hen it should cease. The 
money was to be distributed among the states in pro- 
portion to the number of persons within the school age 
in each, who were unable to read and write. It 
required that each State should spend of its own rev- 
enue one-third as much as it should receive from the 
United States ; and then limited the amount tO' be 
expended to the support of normal schools to one- 
tenth of the amount received. It left the states free, 
under those restrictions, to expend the money accord- 
ing to their own judgment. Mr. Garland spoke at 
great length, favoring the bill, and we quote from him 
at length, owing to the general importance of the 
matter to the whole country, and the fact that much 
of his remarks are about the condition of his State. He 
said : 

"In the discussion of the bill two questions nat- 
urally arise ; first, the power to pass such a bill as this, 
and second, the policy of it. I do not require the thir- 
teenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to enable 
me to find the power of Congress to do this. I am sat- 
isfied that we had the power before the amendments 
were enacted. The point was decided by the Supreme 
Court, long before the amendments were ever dreamed 
of, in the case of Cooper vs. Roberts. 

"Again, if Congress can grant lands for schools, it 
can certainly grant money itself. No fine-spun theory 
can bring an argument to show a distinction in the 
power to make the grant, as between money and land." 
(Here he cited^ cases of history before the amendments 
were enacted, to show that it had been the precedent 
and policy of the government to make appropriations 



Augustus Hill Garland 73 

—that the power always existed and was never ques- 
tioned.) 

"li education is left with the states, it will never be 
carried on fully, or at least not for years to come. I 
believe every Southern state has come with proper 
guards to its Constitution and its statutory laws on 
the subject; but on account of the misfortunes to 
which they have been subjected, because of the pov- 
erty and great debts many of them bear, they can- 
not meet the exigency of the case. But that they 
have shown a willingness to do so as far as they can, 
in most cases, there can be no doubt. What is the 
problem before us? Illiteracy is the disease to be 
cured ; this is the poison to be extracted, and it is 
right and proper to base the contribution upon that. 
You can fix no other standard so reasonable and fair. 
I feel assured in saying that without some safeguard 
on this subject not one of the Southern States could 
have been 'received back,' as Mr. Lincoln termed it, 
into practical relation with the other States of this 
Union. If one of these States had lingered or hesi- 
tated in the matter of education, it would not have 
been received back into the community of States. 
When the battle for the political life of the State of 
Arkansas was being fought, when the balance stood 
wavering here, persons unable to decide what should 
be its fate, gentlemen in the highest positions as offi- 
cers of this land wrote to me to let them see our 
school law; and when I transmitted it there was no 
lo,nger any doubt as to the fate of that struggle which 
was then going on for the political entity of the State 
of Arkansas. 

'*It was intimated that the proposed appropriation 
appeared to be in the name of the colored people, while 
in fact the whites would get the most of it. That is a 
mistake; there is no distinction there; the white and 



74 Augustus Hill Garland 

colored children share the contribution alike. They 
go into separate schools as a matter of course, which 
the courts in the different states have decided to be 
constitutional. 

'The ratio of the payment of taxes in Arkansas is 
much greater than the white population to the colored. 
If I were now, about to utter my last words, I should 
frankly say that there is no prejudice against the edu- 
cation of the colored children there, on the part of the 
educators, so far as I know. We may dispute as much 
as we please about the theoretical question, the oft- 
repeated one, whether the colored man can be edu- 
cated; but in my judgment it is something that will 
never be settled. I know in many instances colored 
people have been educated, and I know that as citi- 
zens they have the franchise in their hands, and have 
a right to the honors of this government ; and this 
being so, an effort should be made in the direction of 
elevating and improving thicm. If they are to be citizens, 
they should be made the very best citizens. They should 
know the value of the ballot that is put in their hands : 
they should know the value of civil rights. And for one, 
as I took the stump in favor of the present Constitution 
of Arkansas (the constitution of 1874), and was the 
first governor under it, I did not mean to humbug 
anybody then, nor do I mean to do so now. I want 
all races in the country to be brought up to the very 
highest phase of education, to the very front rank of 
knowledge. I do not believe, so help me Heaven, that 
there is any prejudice on the part of the educated 
classes in the State of Arkansas, to which my knowl- 
edge is principally confined, to the education of the 
colored people, as far and as much as the means given 
to them will enable them to do so. If we have done 
our best and are continuing to do so now, with this 



Augustus Hill Garland 75 

accumulated mass of population tipon us, it seems to 
me there is but one duty, and that is to vote this aid. 

"Mr. President, looking- at the subject for myself, 
with all the lights that surround me, I do not know 
how my friends on the other side can say sincerely to 
the colored man, 'We want to educate you, and yet 
will not vote for this bill or something similar to it.' I 
do not know how they can make it clear to him that 
they are sincere when they withhold this effort to help 
him for ten years longer, until the States get upon a 
sound footing and wipe away the rubbish now resting 
upon them, and become self-sustaining. 

"I look upon this measure as being the most import- 
ant one that has been before Congress for many, many 
days ; and for my State, I look upon it as being the 
most important bill to us that has been proposed here. 
We are struggling there with conscientious energ}^ 
and with a high purpose to accomplish these ends. But 
by reason of circumstances not within our control, we 
are not able to meet the requirements of the time. 
Many of our schools hold sessions of only two or three 
months in the year. If this aid be given us, much good 
v/ill be accomplished. We can meet in a reasonable 
and honorable way this great exigency. Are we 
together upon the great question of the day? Cer- 
tainly, in the name of Heaven, after nearly twenty 
years of peace, we ought to be a unit upon some one 
question, and not be standing in the shadows of the 
past and fighting our battles over again, but be doing 
something for the advancing and fast approaching 
future. If we are really sincere, let us manifest our 
sincerity, and of all things it would be to me the best 
and proudest day since I have been here, to see this 
measure meet the entire approval of the Senate. 

"In conclusion, I implore both sides and all sides 
to come together and vote for this bill and be a unit 



76 Augustus Hill Garland 

upon it, as we have been talking about it and promis- 
ing it for years past." 

And the bill finally passed the Senate in an amended 
form ; but it got no further. 

JjC >ii ^ ^ 

The above excerpts from the Speeches of Augustus 
H. Garland, though affording a poor ground upon 
which an estimate of his work in the Senate that 
would begin to do him justice can be based, will yet 
convey to the reader some idea of his thoroughness 
of attack, wealth of legal information, ability in pre- 
sentation of facts, and earnestness of effort. Many 
short debates with Senators show his ability as a ready 
thinker, but of course have to be omitted. On many 
occasions he cleared up technical disputes and ques- 
tions involving rules of order, or questions of legiti- 
mate procedure. His arguments served nearly always 
to straighten out the point under discussion, and to 
the evident satisfaction of those holding different 
views. He always had the rules of order at his finger's 
ends. With this he had a wealth of knowledge of pre- 
cedents established by previous acts or procedures of 
Senate and House. He was ferquently referred to by his 
colleagues as ''the able lawyer." Ex-Senator Berry of 
Arkansas says of him that he *'was regarded by all 
Senators who served with him as one of the ablest 
lawyers who had served in the Senate since the war. 
He was universally liked, conservative in his views, 
and never got excited. He was likely to take just as 
fair a view of all possible questions as anyone." 

Nothing is better evidence of the standing of Mr. 
Garland at Washington, than the personal testimony 
of men associated with him there, as that just quoted. 
Another gentleman who knew him there, the late Ex- 
Senator Jas. K. Jones, says of him : "He never sought 
to attract public attention to himself, and seemed to 



Augustus Hill Garland 77 

shrink from the public gaze. His speeches in the Sen- 
ate show that his object was always to convince those 
to whom he spoke ; and he never spoke over the heads 
of Senators to the people at large. He was a lawyer 
and a student, and had as little in him of what the 
word 'politician' is usually understood to mean, as 
any man I ever saw." He is said by some to have stood 
higher in the estimation of the Republicans, then in 
control of the Senate, than any other man from the 
South. He was regarded as being more of a patriot 
than a partisan ; and his speeches, delivered with the 
rugged force characteristic of his temperament, carried 
great weight in consequence. By common consent, 
he was held to be one of the ablest exponents of the 
Constitution that ever sat in the Senate. He was on 
several occasions called to the Vice-President's chair 
to preside over the proceedings of that body. 



I 



Augustus Hill Gakland 79 



SECTION III 

In 1884 there came a call to Senator Garland to lay 
down his position of representing merely his State, 
and assume representation for the nation. President 
Cleveland appointed him Attorney General of theUnited 
States. This was a marked honor for Mr. Garland, 
and for his State as well ; for this is the first and only 
time that Arkansas has been represented in the Presi- 
dent's Cabinet. Not only that, but Mr. Garland 
enjoyed the distinction of being the first man from the 
South to sit in that body, after the War. When news 
of his appointment was received by his brother Sena- 
tors, it seemed to give general satisfaction on all sides, 
and all thought that the President had made a wise 
choice. At this time Mr. Garland was considered one 
ef the five most prominent Democratic leaders in the 
Senate. When he resigned and accepted the Presi- 
dent's invitation to sit in his special council of advis- 
ors, it was felt all over the country that a man of rare 
ability had been added. He was a most prominent 
figure at Washington. His marked eccentricities of 
manner and method (of which we shall speak later), 
together with his great legal ability and capacity for 
making and holding friends, combined to attract to 
him an attention that was always a tribute to his high 
qualities. 

Mr. Garland took up his official duties on March 6, 
1885, s"^ continued in office until 1889, when Har- 
rison was elected to the Presidency. The pages fol- 
lowing which contain some of his official opinions as 
Attorney-General, may not give that same interest that 



80 Augustus Hill Garland 

clusters around his magnificent speeches in the Sen- 
ate. We have tried to pick out from the great raft of 
opinions given to the President by him, only those on 
the most important questions. 

PARDON— LAWTON'S CASE. 

Lawton, having been commissioned a lieutenant in 
the United States Army and taken an oath as such 
officer to support the Constitution, afterwards bore 
arms against the United States in the War of the 
Rebellion, but on February 6, 1867, received a full par- 
don from; the President. Mr. Garland said, in reply to the 
President's letter: "The question for my opinion is, 
whether it was the intention of the fourteenth amend- 
ment to take away rights which previous pardons had 
restored; or in other words, whether its purpose was 
to cast a reproach on the Executive Department of 
the government by repudiating, as unworthy of credit, 
its acts of questionable validity, by destroying rights 
which had undoubtedly been vested under these acts, 
and by violating the national faith, so pledged. 

''Applying the sound rule of interpretation given in 
the Supreme Court in various cases, to the third sec- 
tion of the fourteenth amendment, I am of the opinion 
that the consequences of allowing its general words 
of exclusion to operate without limitation in favor of 
persons in the situation of Lawton, would be injustice 
and a disregard of the public faith, which nothing 
short of the most explicit and controlling language 
should authorize. 

'T am of the opinion that Lawton is not affected 
by the amendment, because at the time it was ordained 
the offences upon which the disability imposed is 
based, could not have been imputed to him, for the 
reason that he had by virtue of his pardon become 
a 'new man' and 'as innocent as if he had never com- 



Augustus Hill Garland 81 

mitted the offence.' The effect of the pardon was 
to close the eyes of the law to it." 

It will be recalled that the above case is somewhat 
similar to Mr. Garland's own position in 1867, when 
he argued the famous case of Ex Parte Garland in 
the Supreme Court of the United States, 

Mr. Garland's opinion was asked for on the ques- 
tion whether an Indian, in the Territory, possessing 
otherwise the requisite attainments, but a member of 
one of the tribes there and not a citizen of the United 
States, could lawfully be appointed and qualify as post- 
master of any of the several classes. He said : 
"Excepting as regards the offices of President and 
Vice-President and membership in Congress, the Con- 
stitution is silent on the subject of eligibility to office 
under the general government. Disqualifications are 
declared under particular circumstances, but there is 
no requirement in order to be eligible to office, other 
than an oath to support the Constitution. Hence, 
whether an Indian is eligible to the said office, depends 
on whether his status, civil and political, is at the time 
such that he can give the required bond and take the 
prescribed oath. Nothing in this oath precludes a 
foreign-born resident of the United States, who has 
not yet been naturalized, from taking it. Want of 
citizenship is not of itself an obstacle. 

*'But the condition of the Indian is peculiar. He is 
treated by our government as belonging to a separate, 
though independent, political community, and is not 
ordinarily dealt with by the general government as 
an individual, but as a member of a tribe. Unless 
clearly warranted by the provision of some treaty or 
statute, an act which thus interferes with the tribal 
relation, must be deemed to have no sanction in our 
laws. 

"I therefore think that an Indian, while a member 



82 Augustus Hill Garland 

of a tribe and subject to tribal jurisdiction, is not in 
legal contemplation competent to take the oath 
referred to." 

The question was asked, whether the head-money 
tax of fifty cents, levied by the act of August 5, 1882, 
entitled "an act to regulate immigration," was demand- 
able for passengers coming into our ports not as immi- 
grants, but transiently, or tourists. 

Air. Garland said : "The question is, did Congress 
intend that the term 'passengers' should be taken in 
its most extended occupation, or in the restricted sense 
of immigrants coming for permanent abode? 

''That Congress has pov/er to lay an import of this 
kind has been recently decided by the United States 
Supreme Court in the 'Head-money Cases.' But this 
case involved only the constitutionality, and not the 
interpretation, of the act. 

"Whenever Congress refers to persons entitled to 
its benefits, whether partakers of its bounty or objects 
of its protection, it invariably describes them as 'immi- 
grants' and not as 'passengers.' On the other hand, 
when the statute would provide a protection against 
the introduction of convicts, lunatics, idiots and pau- 
pers, it declares that there shall be an examination into 
the condition of the 'passengers' using a term intended 
to include all other itinerants, as well as immigrants. 
I see nothing in the statute that leads me to believe 
that the word 'passengers' was intended to be taken 
in the restricted sense of immigrants, and it compre- 
hends all itinerant persons." 

GRANT TO GARLAND COUNTY, ARK. 

Mr. Garland's opinion will fully explain the nature 
of the case : 

"Under the circumstances existing in this case, and 
for reasons stated, the institution of proceedings on 




Old Law Office of Judge Hubbard (still standing), Washington, Ark. 



Augustus Hill Oakland 83 

behalf of a certain land (part of the Hot Springs Res- 
ervation), granted to Garland county, Arkansas, for 
the site of a public building, would not be warranted. 

"It is requested that legal proceedings be insti- 
tuted, with a view to recover to the government the 
title and possession of the land, should the failure of 
the county authorities to carry out the purposes be 
regarded as operating to nullify the grant." 

"While it is clear from the language of the grant 
that Congress intended to devote the land to the speci- 
fic purpose ; viz., ' to be used as a site for the public 
building of said county' ; yet, whether this annexes a 
condition to the grant, or creates a mere trust, is not 
so clear. If a condition, upon breach thereof the grant 
would be liable to forfeiture ; if a trust, the same result 
would not follow upon a breach. 

*'In the former case, I submit that in the absence of 
any law of Congress declaring the forfeiture or direct- 
ing the institution of proceedings to that end, no 
authority exists to bring a suit in behalf of the United 
States to recover the land on the ground of failure 
to perform the condition. In either case, it would 
seem unnecessary to consider the subject of proceed- 
ings to enforce the trusts, as it appears that a suit has 
recently been brought to amend the aforesaid lease 
and recover control of the property, that it may be 
devoted to the purpose for which it was donated. These 
considerations lead me to think that, under the exist- 
ing circumstances, I would not be warranted in insti- 
tuting proceedings of any kind in behalf of the United 
States, touching the premises." 

HOT SPRINGS RESERVATION— ARKANSAS. 

''The Secretary of the Interior has power under the 
act of December i6, 1878, to lease sites upon the Hot 
Springs Reservation for the term of five years, and to 



84 Augustus Hill GabljlNd 

relet the premises for the same term, from time to time, 
as the leases expire." 

Upon the facts stated Mr. Garland advised: 'That 
the Secretary may accept the surrender of a lease of 
a bath-house site heretofore made to Smithmeyer, 
and cancel the same, and then enter into a new lease 
of the premises to the same party for the term; of 
five years. 

''During the term of the lease, and while the tenant 
is in possession under the same, he may remove from 
the premises whatever improvements he has erected 
thereon for the purposes of trade, whether machinery 
or buildings ; but if he leases the premises without 
removing such improvements, and the government 
should take possession, they would become the prop- 
erty of the latter." 

MAIL CONTRACTS— DOUBLE PAYMENTS. 

Hanger, of Little Rock, and others, were mail con- 
tractors for certain routes in the State of Arkansas, 
service upon which was discontinued May 31, 1861, up 
to which time, from January i, 1861, they were paid by 
the government in full what was due them. After- 
wards they collected from the State of Arkansas for 
the same service (January i, to May 31, 1861), certain 
amounts, which were paid out of moneys belonging 
to the United States, which had been seized by the 
State. 

Mr. Garland advised : "That the contractors are 
under legal liability to make restitution to the United 
States of the amounts so collected, but that their sure- 
ties cannot be held responsible therefore, upon the 
undertaking of the United States." 



Augustus Hill G-arland 85 

CLAIM OF A PARTICIPANT IN THE 
REBELLION. 

In i860, Eggleston, a naval officer, became entitled 
to a share in the proceeds of a captured slaver, the 
amount of which was certified to the Treasury Depart- 
ment by the Secretary of the Navy, but remained at 
the time unpaid. 

In this case Mr. Garland advised : ''That by force 
of the joint resolution of March 2, 1867, 'forbidding 
accounting officers settling claims existing prior to 
April 13, 1861, in favor of participants in the late insur- 
rection or rebellion against the United States ; pay- 
ments of such shares cannot now be made, notwith- 
standing the President's proclamation of amnesty of 
December 25, 1868, and to authorize its payment, an 
act of Congrss, if necessary." 

ATTORNEY GENERAL. 

It was Mr. Garland's decision : "That the Attorney 
General of the United States (himself) will not inter- 
pret a regulation of practice made by the Commis- 
sioner of Patents for his own guidance and that of his 
subordinates for the conveniently intelligent and 
orderly disposal of the business of his office. Such 
regulations, which the heads of bureaus and depart- 
ments can make, modify or amend at will, or enforce 
or waive, as seems expedient, may well be left for their 
interpretation to the head of the department or bureau 
to which they pertain." 

Charles E. Holmes had entered the military service 
in August, 1862, as a volunteer, to serve for three years ; 
he subsequently deserted ; but he afterwards voluntar- 
ily returned to service under the President's proclama- 
tion (of pardon) of November 11, 1865, and was mus- 
tered out of service along with his company on July 2, 
1865. 



86 Augustus Hill Garland 

Mr. Garland advised: "That the time which had 
elapsed between his desertion and his return (with 
payment therefor) should not be credited to him in 
a discharge or otherwise, but he is entitled to have 
his actual service credited to him in an honorable 
discharge." 

An opinion of some importance and interest which 
Mr. Garland gave, was with reference to the protec- 
tion of the law afforded to foreign consuls, resident in 
the United States. 

He advised : "That a foreign consul, a resident of 
the United States, must look for protection to his per- 
son and property to the laws of the State in which he 
resides. The laws which protect the President of the 
United States in his person and property, are the same 
as those which protect the humblest citizen ; and if the 
personal or property rights of that high functionary 
should ever be violated in the City of Cincinnati, he 
would have to look for protection to the laws of the 
State of Ohio. Certainly a foreign consul cannot 
justly complain because he is not better protected than 
the highest officer of the government of the United 
States." 

On the general subject of the ownership of real 
estate in the Territories by aliens, on a case which 
cam;e up, Mr. Garland gave the following opinion, 
which will explain the case in question : — 

"The provision of the act of March 3, 1887, Chap. 
340, restricting the ownership of real estate in the 
Territories to American citizens, etc., applies to mines, 
these being real estate. 

"But stock in a corporation is personalty, and con- 
sistently with these provisions an alien may hold* 
shares of stock issued by an American corporation 
owning mineral lands in the Territories ; yet where the 
holding by aliens exceeds twenty per cent of its stock, 



Augustus Hill Garland 87 

such corporations can neither own, nor hold hereafter, 
acquired real estate, while such holding by aliens in 
excess of twenty per cent continues. 

"So an alien may hereafter advance money for the 
purpose of developing mining property in the Terri- 
tories; but he cannot thereby acquire any interest in 
such real estate. An alien may lavv^fully contract with 
an American owner to work mines by a personal con- 
tract for hire, on a bona-fide lease, for a reasonable 
time." 

In a case concerning the Kansas and Arkansas Val- 
ley Railroad Company, Mr. Garland advised : — 

**That under the act of June i, 1866, Chap. 395, 
authorizing said railroad company to construct a rail- 
road through the Indian Territory, the company has 
no right to go beyond the limits of the right-of-way 
therein prescribed, for the purpose of taking timber 
or other material for the construction of such railroads. 

'The courts named in the eighth section of that act 
have jurisdiction over the controversies between said 
company and the Cherokee Nation growing out of the 
taxing timber or other materials by the former, beyond 
said limits. But the right of the Cherokees to go into 
Court does not diminish in any degree the duty of the 
Executive Department of the government to use its 
power for their protection by ordering the encroach- 
ments of the railroad company to be stopped." 

Mr .Garland gave three important opinions relative 
to the general subject of ''Retired List of the Army." 
The facts of each case are herewith given, together 
with the opinions, in their order. 

(I) 
Isaac Lynde, a major in the Seventh Infantry, was, 
by direction of the President, dropped from the rolls 
of the Army November 25, 1861 ; and H. W. Waller, a 



88 Augustus Hill Garland 

captain in the Fourth Infantry was, with the advice and 
consent of the Senate, appointed majoir in the Seventh 
Infantry, in Lynde's place. Afterwards, on November 
2^, 1866, the President revoked the order dropping 
Lynde, and directed that he be restored to his former 
commission, to fill a vacancy of major in the Eigh- 
teenth Infantry, to date from July 28, 1866; and at the 
same time, by direction of the President, Lynde was 
placed on the retired list as major. 

Mr. Garland advised : "That the action of the Pres- 
ident on November 2y, 1866, was inefifectual to restore 
Lynde to the Army and place him on the retired list, 
and he is not entitled to be borne thereon." 

(2) 

Charles B. Stivers, a captain in the Seventh Infan- 
try, was summarily dismissed from the service by 
direction of the President, July 15, 1863, and notified 
thereof. Afterwards, on August 11, 1863, the order of 
dismissal was revoked ; whereupon Stivers, the 
vacancy not having been filled in the meantime, 
returned to the position from which he had been dis- 
missed and continued to serve therein until December 
30, 1864, when, upon the finding of a retiring board, 
he was retired under the provision of the Act of Aug- 
ust 3, 1861. 

Mr. Garland advised : "That the dismissal of July 
25, 1863, created a vacancy which could not otherwise 
be filled than by appointment, with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate; that the subsequent revocation of 
that order on August 11, 1863, was inefifectual to 
restore Stivers to his former position in the Army; 
that afterwards, when he was put on the retired list, 
he was not a commissioned officer of the Army ; and 
that, accordingly, he is not entitled to be borne on such 
list." 



Augustus Hill Garland 89 

(3) 

James T. Leavy, a first lieutenant in the Seventh In- 
fantry, having been found by a retiring board "incapa- 
citated, from active service on account of insanity, which 
insanity is not incident to the service," was by direc- 
tion of the President, retired July 31, 1868, on pay 
proper alone under the act of August 3, 1861. At Leavy's 
request the order of retirement was by direction of the 
President, on June 23, 1869, so amended as to wholly 
retire him from service with one year's pay and allow- 
ances. On April 2, 1878, by direction of the President, 
the order of June 23, 1869, was declared void, on the 
ground that Leavy was insane when he requested it; 
and he was restored to the retired lists in accordance 
with the original order, 

Mr. Garland advised: "That after the President 
had once acted upon the finding of the retiring board, 
by placing Leavy on the retired list with pay proper 
alone under the act of August 3, 1861, his power over 
the case was exhausted, and the subsequent order 
wholly retiring Leavy was void for want of authority 
thus to retire him, and that therefore Leavy is entitled 
to be borne on the retired list conformably to the order 
retiring him to pay proper alone under the Act of 
August 3, 1861." 

An interesting case upon which Mr. Garland 
gave advice, and with which we shall conclude our 
brief treatment of his opinions as Attorney General, 
comes under the head of "Double Pensions." A per- 
son to whom pension was granted as the widow of 
a soldier in the War of the Rebellion, was also 
granted a pension certificate as the widow of a soldier 
in the War of 1812; and drew pensions upon both 
certificates from March 9, 1878 to December 3, 1883. 
The Commissioner of Pensions, on discovering this, 



90 Augustus Hill GtAeland 

required her to make an election ; and she, having 
elected to hold the first mentioned certificate, he 
ordered the amount which had been paid to her on the 
other certificate to be withheld in installments of six 
dollars per month from payments thereafter, and 
issued an order to the Pensions Agent accordingly, 

Mr. Garland advised: "That the order made in 
this case, being within the general jurisdiction of the 
Commissioner, is obligatory on the Pensions Agent, 
and that the accounting officers of the Treasury have 
no power to disallow payments m'ade by the agent 
pursuant thereto. 

'Tt is not within the province of the accounting offi- 
cers of the Treasury, upon hearing of any order made 
by the Commissioner of Pensions to a pension agent 
for the payment of pensions, to notify such agent of 
what their decision will be upon his account when 
rendered. 

"In the case stated, the whole of the monthly pen- 
sion under the certificate which the pensioner elected 
to hold should be withheld until the amounts so with- 
held shall equal the sum paid the pensioner under 
the other certificate." 

* * * * 

Mr. Garland's career as Attorney General was 
slightly crippled by the vials of slander heaped upon 
him by inimical newspapers, etc., because he owned 
three hundred dollars of Pan-Electric telephone stock. 
He had just entered his acceptation of President 
Cleveland's offer to go into the Cabinet, when these 
newspapers began to circulate a slander as unfounded 
as untruths can ever be. He had bought a few shares 
of this company's stock while a Senator, and others 
who had done the same were Isham G. Harris of Ten- 
nessee and Joseph E. Johnston of Georgia. Now the 
Bell Telephone Company was a wealthy concern, and 



Augustus Hill Garland 91 

with its countless thousands determined to try and 
choke out the smaller Pan-Electric Company ; and it 
was therefore to its interest to fight all the men con- 
nected with it, by the false slander of good men. 
Because of Mr. Garland's special prominence, most of 
the accusations fell on him. But when he found that 
he was the subject of all these charges, he went 
frankly to President Cleveland, as only a manly man 
could do, and laid the whole matter before him, offer- 
ing to resign on the instant if the President should 
think it best. Cleveland took it under advisement, 
and then told Mr. Garland that his holding of the 
stock was in no way incompatible with his holding 
the office of Attorney General. 

The House of Representatives took the matter 
under investigation, urged on by the Bell Telephone 
interests there; but it resulted in the entire vindica- 
tion of Mr. Garland and the others. This statement 
is based on a careful study of the proceedings of the 
Committee appointed by the House of Representa- 
tives "to investigate charges against certain public 
officers relating to the Pan-Electric Telephone Com- 
pany and to suit by the United States to annul the 
Bell Telephone patents." The committee was com- 
posed of Mr. Boyle, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Gates of Ala- 
bama, Mr. Eden, of Illinois, Mr. Hall, of Iowa, Mr. 
Hale, of Missouri, Mr. Ramey, of Massachusetts, Mr. 
Millard, of New York, Air. Hornback, of Kansas, and 
Mr. Mofifatt, of Michigan. 

Later years have only strengthened the decision of 
the committee. Mr. Garland could not have been 
justly criticised ; but slander can be circulated on the 
bravest, and it sometimes takes a long statement to 
clear those bravest to the public satisfaction. It gives 
newspapers, if inimical, the opportunity to say some- 
thing to their liking. But while Mr. Garland's repu- 



92 Augustus Hill GARLiLND 

tation suffered some among strangers, and ver}? 
slightly among some former friends — the thing which 
hurt him most — yet he retained the fullest confidence 
of those who knew him well. Honest, fearless, reso- 
lute, he did not shirk a duty or responsibility to 
avoid criticism. 

From 1889, when Mr. Garland retired from the 
office of Attorney General of the United States, until 
his death in 1899, he practiced law at Washington. 
Nearly all of his practice was before the Supreme 
Court. In these later years public office had no charm 
for him and he preferred to settle down to the quiet 
practice of the law. It is authentically stated that he 
was several times, the principal one perhaps being at 
the death of Justice Wood, in May, 1887, offered a 
place on the Supreme Court bench, but refused on 
account of his advanced age and declining health. He 
was also asked to take a place on the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission, but again refused. His services 
were much in demand at Washington by those who 
sought a correct interpretation of the organic law of 
the land. He was a power before the United States 
Supreme Court. He was said to be one attorney who 
always made clear to the Court the law in the case 
he argued. In some of the cases which he presented 
to that body he obtained decisions in accordance with 
his views, the result having had their effect upon all 
citizens of the Republic ; and never to their detriment. 
His influence at Washington was far-reaching. He 
wrote a little book in 1898, one year before his death, 
entitled, ''Experiences in the Supreme Court," in 
which he tells of the cases in which he had partici- 
pated before that tribunal. Probably his two most 
notable achievements in the law, were the cases of 
Ex Parte Garland, of which we have already given a 
full account, and the case of Osborne vs. Nicholson, 



Augustus Hill G-arland 93 

in which the validity of contracts for slaves was estab- 

lished. , 

Mr. Garland was in very poor health tor several 
years preceeding his death, and some months before 
the end had been confined in the Hospital for several 
weeks. His friends noticed when he was able to be 
out again that he had failed rapidly and was growmg 
feeble. A few weeks before he died he was taken ill 
with the grip, and had suffered from its effects very 
much. He doctored himself by taking popular reme- 
dies and did not consider his case serious enough to 
call 'in a physician. The day before his death, while in 
the Supreme Court room, he had laid his hand on his 
head and complained of being very ill. 

On the morning of January 26, 1899, before going mto 
the Supreme Court room, he spent some time m the 
Clerk's office, and remarked to one of the officials that 
he was not feeling very well, and thought he would go 
to Fortress Monroe on the following Monday to take 
a rest. But he did not regard his condition at the time 
as being at all serious. 

The strange manner of Mr. Garland's death while 
pleading a case before the Supreme Court of the 
United States, is known to all. There is no late paral- 
lel to the manner in which he received the final sum- 
mons, except the case of Wm. H. Windom, former 
Senator from Mississippi and Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, who succumbed to apoplexy some years before, 
at the conclusion of a speech delivered at the annual 
banquet of the New York Chamber of Commerce. Mr. 
Garland was stricken with apoplexy while addressing 
the court, at fifteen minutes past twelve in the after- 
noon, and died within ten minutes. The occurrence 
came with startling unexpectedness, changing the 
usual calm and dignity of the Court into temporary 
confusion, while the dying man was carried from the 



94 Augustus Hill Garland 

chamber in a futile effort to alleviate his condition. 
When the Court convened at noon Mr. Garland 
resumed an argument in the case of Lawson vs. 
Moore, v^hich had begun the day before. There v^^as a 
full bench, with the exception of Justices Brewer and 
White. Mr. Garland spoke caln;ly, and with no evidence 
of agitation or effort. He had read from a law volume 
and had followed with the sentence. *'This, your hon- 
ors, is our contention." As the last word was uttered 
he was seen to raise his hand and then gasp. He tot- 
tered and fell sideways, striking against a chair and 
overturnling it as he fell heavily to the floor. His associ- 
ate in the case, Mr. Frank Mackey, was at once by his 
side. A deadly pallor had overspread his face, giving 
place to a purple which foretold the gravity of 
the attack. He was carried from the chamber across 
to the room of Chief Clerk McKinney, and all that was 
possible was done to save his life. Within ten minutes 
from the time of the stroke Mr. Garland breathed his 
last. 

Word of the tragedy was soon noised through the 
Capitol, and Senators and Representatives hurried to 
the Court room. The two Senators from Arkansas, Mr. 
Berry and Mr. Jones, were among the first to view 
the body, and following them was a long line of per- 
sons high in legislative and legal circles, who had been 
associated with Mr. Garland at various times in his 
long and notable career of public services. 

Thus did ''that mysterious monarch, that with the 
self-same tread knocks at the doors of King's palaces 
and poor men's huts," invade the sanctuary of justice 
for Augustus H. Garland. No spot in all our land is 
so replete with solemn memories as that on which he 
fell. Here were solved by the calm light of reason and 
unbiased equipoise of the law, many of the most 
momentous questions that have ever been submitted 



Augustus Hill Garland 95 

to mortal tribunal. This was for a long time the 
Senate Chamber of the United States, and here were 
delivered the great speeches of Clay, Webster and Cal- 
houn. This was undoubtedly the fittest place for the 
ending of so great a life. 

Mr. Garland closed his earthly career in the presence 
of what he had often called the highest and purest 
tribunal upon earth. The late Ex-Senator James K. 
Jones said of the manner of his death: *T am sure 
that if Mr. Garland had been consulted, the manner 
of his death was exactly what he would have pre- 
ferred." Just after Mr. Garland's death, former Judge 
Henry W. Scott of New York recalled a conversation 
held with him in Washington some two months 
before. ''You have expounded many great constitu- 
tional questions in this tribunal," remarked Judge 
Scott, ''You may yet die in the harness." In reply 
Mr. Garland said, "It has been over forty years since 
I argued my first case. Nothing would please me bet- 
ter, when my time comes to die, than to be stricken 
right here in this court room in the midst of an argu- 
ment. That would be a fitting climax to my career." 
It was almost on the same spot where this conversation 
occurred, that Mr. Garland fell dead while arguing his 
case. The Arkansas jurist died a husba,ndman, fall- 
ing between the handles of his plow, a pilot dropping 
lifeless at his wheel, a philosopher breathing his last 
among his books. He died at his work, in the highest 
forum of the American lawyer's fame. 

Mr. Garland's body was embalmed the evening of 
January 26, remaining at the undertaker's that night. 
The next morning it was removed to the Colonial 
Hotel and rested until Saturday morning, when the 
funeral train started for Little Rock, which place it 
reached on Monday following. The body was interred 
at Mount Holly Cemetery, whef^ his wife, who died in 



^ \ 

^^■'^.J. 



96 Augustus Hill GtArland 

1877,1 and his daugfiter, Miss Daisy, who dfied at 
Washington, D. C, were buried. 

In former years Mr. Garland had mixed freely with 
the people, and everybody knew and loved him. All 
of his early associations were with Arkansans ; and 
though he was occupied at the nation's capitol almost 
constantly since his entrance to the Senate in 1877, yet 
he still retained up to the end his citizenship in his 
State, and loved to return and be welcomed by his peo- 
ple at home. During his long service in public life, 
he had a hold on the affections of his people which 
could not be shaken. At the time of his death no 
citizen of Arkansas was held in higher esteem than 
he. Loved and respected by the people of the State, 
and honored by the nation, in every position he occu- 
pied he acquitted himself of his duties like a patriot. 
It was therefore no wonder that his memory received 
such homage when his people were given a last oppor- 
tunity to demonstrate their respect for the great states- 
man by performing in appropriate manner the offices 
due the dead. Mr. Garland was popular with all classes. 
The humblest citizen was his friend and admirer, and 
none exhibited grief more sincere at his bier than the 
artisan and the wage-earner. Among the visitors at his 
funeral were prominent men from all parts of the 
State, who had journeyed there on the special mission 
of paying tribute to the distinguished dead. The 
dreary weather in no wise held back the people. The 
large attendance was emblematic of the high esteem 
in which all Arkansas held Mr. Garland, and of the 
popular appreciation of his eminent services to the 
State. Many colored people called to take a last look 
at the face. Not a few of them were typical old South- 
ern negroes, who gratefully remembered occasions 
when Mr. Garland had spoken kindly to them. 



Augustus Hill Garland 97 

The above attempt at faithful account of the public 
record of Mr. Garland has been made with the con- 
sciousness that it would be superfluous to try to com- 
press into a brief compass anything but the princi- 
ple event of the life that forms a part of the history 
of the State of Arkansas, and the country at large — 
a life comprising a remarkable series of triumphs over 
difficulties and obstacles that often seemed insup- 
erable. Mr. Garland lived very much in the public 
eye. A considerable part of his life was spent in a 
very strong period of our history, during which time 
he was constantly taking a prominent part in State 
and national affairs. In his position he was neces- 
sarily exposed to criticism on the part of political ene- 
mies and inimical newspapers ; but under the most try- 
ing conditions the fairness and uprightness of his 
intentions shielded him from reproach. He could never 
be accused of having any personal aim in view, but 
was always devoted to the duties of the hour, with the 
confiding belief that deeds well done will generally 
bear their own good fruits. He performed the various 
tasks confronting him with entire singleness of pur- 
pose. He was always jealous of the honor of his 
State ; and, in 1880, he spoke in nearly every county, 
opposing with all his might the Fishback Amendment, 
which repudiated the "Holford Bonds," which were for 
years a source of trouble to the State. He believed 
that it was neither honest nor honorable for the State 
to refuse to pay these bonds. (See Shinn's History.) 

We have reserved for this place to say something 
of Mr. Garland's personal appearance and character- 
istics. In person, he was well-built and tall. His 
head was large and his face round and smooth-shaved, 
and animated with black and most expressive eyes. 
His smooth and excellent features indicated an amia- 
ble disposition. Strength and dignity were portrayed 



98 Augustus Hill Garland 

in his very countenance. Like most great men, his 
tastes were simple and his manners plain. He was at 
home anywhere, whether in the dignified precincts of 
the Federal Supreme Court, in the Senate, in the pres- 
ence of the autocratic President of the United States, 
or in the modest unpretentious surroundings of "Hom- 
iny Hill," his twelve thousand-acre plantation home, 
situated twelve miles from Little Rock. In his per- 
sonal traits, Mr. Garland was one of the most amia- 
ble Democratic men that ever entered public life. 
While serving as Attorney General, he lived in an old 
frame house with large grounds, on Rhode Island Ave- 
nue, near Fourteenth Street. Visitors to his residence 
on summer evenings would find him usually with his 
coat off, enjoying relaxation, walking about his lawn 
or sitting in the shade, looking like a prosperous 
farmer after a hard day's work. He often told his 
friends that "Hominy Hill" in Arkansas was a more 
delightful place than the most elegant house at the 
national capital. Mr. Garland's gaunt figure, strong 
face, old-fashioned rolling collar, long broad-cloth coat 
and wide sombrero, made him a conspicuous figure at 
Washington. He was a familiar personage at the cap- 
ital for more than twenty years. Mr. Garland was a 
charming character, and his many friends were 
devoted to him not because he was a great man, but 
because he was true and possessed those traits of char- 
acter indispensable to noble manhood. His wife had 
died in 1877, but his mother lived with him at Wash- 
ington. She is said never to have seemed fatigued 
in the entertainments of her son's visitors and friends. 
She always received them with the same cordiality as 
though they were calling on them in their simple 
home in Arkansas. They constituted a most open- 
hearted and affectionate family. Warm and earnest in 
their friendship, genial in companionship, no one ever 



Augustus Hill Garland 9^ 

visited them who failed to take away and carry always 
kind remembrances of them. Mr. Garland's tastes 
were simple and inexpensive, and he cared nothing* 
for wealth. His principal care was to keep always and 
scrupulously out of debt. 

Mr. Garland was a man of many eccentricities. In 
a way he was as eccentric as Samuel Houston or 
Andrew Jackson. He habitually refused to wear a 
dress coat, and more especially so after the death of 
his wife. When he accepted President Cleveland's 
offer to go into the Cabinet, he made it a condition 
that he should not be required to participate in any 
of the social functions. And this pledge was kept, 
for during the four years in which he was Attorney 
General, he never appeared at any of the official enter- 
tainments. During his entire life at Washington, he 
never accepted nor offered formal hospitality. But he 
often dropped in to dinner with a neighbor, or asked 
a friend to go home and take "pot luck" with him. A 
written invitation was always declined, no matter what 
it was nor from whom it came. He abhorred conven- 
tionalities ; but this did not prevent him from being 
acknowledged by his peers in the legal profession as 
being one of the most capable men who ever filled the 
place of Attorney General. He used to say that his 
idea of hospitality was a cob pipe and a jug of whis- 
key. He took the ground that no true Democrat ever 
took liquor out of a bowl or glass. But curiously 
enough, he was a total abstainer from all spirit and 
malt liquor. When someone asked him how he could 
cultivate a habit so much at variance with his princi- 
ples, he said: "I used to drink as regularly and fre- 
quently as any one. But one day while walking 
through the cemetery at Little Rock, I saw the new- 
made grave of a bright man, who had been a friend 
from boyhood. I suddenly realized what brought him 



100 Augustus Hill Garland 

there, and I remembered that several others of our 
age had gone before, from the same cause. It occurred 
to me that I had drunk quite as much liquor as they, 
and that I had had my share." 

Another of his peculiarities was his intense hatred 
of doctors. He used to say that until he broke his leg 
(about a year before he died) he had never paid a doc- 
tor's bill nor paid a cent for medicine. He believed 
that the medical profession was a sort of humbug; 
that no' man was ill unless he abused himself; and that 
he could be cured by correcting that abuse. While 
he was Attorney General he was inflicted by a swelling 
of the jaws. He got a notion that he had been poi- 
soned in somie way, and his associates persuaded him 
to go to a doctor. The physician looked him over and 
remarked : "There is nothing serious the matter with 
you. You have only a mild case of mumps." ''Hell, 
mumps !" exclaimed Mr. Garland in a rage. He 
stamped out of the office in high indignation, but by 
the advice of friends remained in the house two or 
three days, to avoid catching cold until the swelling 
had gone down. 

Mr. Garland was a practical joker, a thorough judge 
of human nature, and a very keen observer of the ridic- 
ulous and artificial in men. Association with him was 
a constant round of pleasant and instructive past-time. 
To great qualities of mind he added an unstudied dig- 
nity, the gentleness of a woman, and the charm of 
spontaneous humor. He was playful as a boy, and 
fond of candy as a school-girl. He was very hard to 
practice a joke upon. On one ocasion some of his 
friends in the Senate, knowing Mr. Garland's love of 
chocolate candy, a sack of which he nearly always 
had upon his desk, procured some blocks of soap 
resembling candy, and placing them upon his desk, 
waited until he should come in and eat them. Mr. 



Augustus Hill Garland 101 

Garland saw the luscious blocks laying before him 
when he entered the chamber, and immediately began 
eating one. But Senators who were waiting for him 
to go to the door to cast out the offending "chocolate," 
were disappointed. Mr. Garland, noticing the joke, 
quietly sat in his place, chewed it, and as quietly 
swallowed, just as though nothing out of the ordinary 
had happened; thus turning the joke on his friends. 

Mr. Garland was very fond of the quiet sport of 
angling. He also loved to hunt with his friends. Law- 
yers used to travel by the military road from Little 
Rock to Arkadelphia, and Mr. Garland with his friends 
would stop at the old "Brick House" on the Caddo 
river near Arkadelphia and pitch camp there ; though 
generally he himself would come on to Arkadelphia, 
and stay with his relatives. He often came down from 
Little Rock to go hunting and fishing with some of 
his friends. 

Mr. Garland was a mian of very strong family rela- 
tions, and the center of all his thoughts was the 
domestic hearthstone. His later years were much sad- 
dened by the suicide of his daughter, which has never 
been fully explained. The sorrow over the loss of his 
wife, who passed away at Christmas time in 1877, he 
carried with him through the rest of his life. Many 
sorrows and bereavements fell to his lot during the 
years just preceeding his death. He was just recover- 
ing from a painful accident caused from falling on the 
ice. For months he lay upon his back and "reckoned 
he never was going to get well." In his last years he 
paid many sad tributes to humanity, full of depth of 
thought, and a pathos that was profound. His clos- 
ing of life was marked with domestic afflictions which 
his affectionate nature would not permit him to forget, 
and whose bitterness time could not alleviate. We 
recall from the Congressional Record several instances 



102 Augustus Hill Garland 

when, in the Senate, he referred to his family joys and 
sorrows, in a passing way. And yet he looked up 
through sorrow to joy, and would not permit himself 
to be overwhelmed by any disaster. On one occasion 
he said in the Senate, 'It will not do, in the hurried 
march of events of human life, to linger too long at 
the graves of departed friends. Probably we all do 
too much of that." His was a faith that necessitated 
a hereafter in which all the disappointments of this 
world are healed, and all its sorrows palliated. 

Augustus H. Garland was in many respects the 
greatest man that Arkansas ever produced. In some 
ways his life is a parallel to that of Washington. 
Born in 1832, just one hundred years after the birth 
of the ''father of his country," he likewise died in 1899, 
a century after the great Virginian's passing. Gar- 
land was to Arkansas something of what Washington 
was to the nation. His aid in making real the recu- 
peration of the State under his administration as the 
first governor under the new constitution, and caus- 
ing it to be finally and fairly started upon its upward 
course of prosperity and peace, bears an unusual anal- 
ogy to the great mission of Washington to the infant 
Republic. Like Washington, in a lesser degree tO' be 
sure, he represented both his State and Nation, and 
in no position given him was he ever found wanting. 
Knowing no creed, he yet loved his fellow man, and 
demonstrated it at the very time when it tried mens' 
souls to do so. Like Washington, he took all his pub- 
lic offices practically without opposition, and as respon- 
sible gifts. Whenever he manifeted a willingness to 
serve, his nomination followed, almost by acclamation. 
The great estimate of his abilities and personal merit 
is sufficiently attested by the fact that he never at any 
time encountered any serious opposition. Few men in 
public life have been more highly honored, and few, if 



Augustus Hill Garland 103 

any, maintained so strong a hold on a constituency. 
Occupying many and exalted positions in public life, 
and filling them all to the satisfaction of the public, 
he was modest and unassuming at all times, and under 
all circumstances a plain, matter-of-fact, practical man, 
and not the least puffed-up by the honors which had 
been showered upon him. The high places to which 
he was often called by the voice of his fellow-citizens 
furnishes good evidence that he secured and main- 
tained through life that cordial appreciation aroused 
and sustained by the union of mental vigor and per- 
sonal worth. And he performed the various tasks 
with unswerving singleness of purpose and conspicu- 
ous talents. Arkansas loved him, because he was one 
of the truest friends the commonwealth ever had. The 
quarter of a century in which he served his country as 
a statesman was a period in our country's history 
which is rich and important in great events; a period 
which in industrial development, in expanding com- 
merce, in the advancement of education, in the better- 
ment of civilization, was more eventful than any like 
period in our national history. As Governor, in the 
Senatorial halls, in the President's Cabinet, before the 
Supreme Court, everywhere he stood as the embodi- 
ment of 

"That providence which in a watchful State, 
Knows almost every grain of garnered gold ; 
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deep. 
Keeps pace with thought, and almost like the gods 
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. 
There is a mystery in the soul of State, 
Which hath an operation more divine 
Than breath or pen can give expression to." 



10-i Augustus Hill Garland 

There was but little in Mr. Garland's nature that 
was dogmatic. Though he held consistently to opin- 
ions which he had from mature deliberation, yet he 
was so tolerant of others' views that he was excep- 
tionally free from that extreme partisan spirit which 
is often considered necessary for those who desire 
political success. He always enjoyed the support of 
his own party, and often got that of his adversaries. 
From first to last he was more of a lawyer than poli- 
tician, using the word in its popular sense. He believed 
in the principles of his party, yet he was never a parti- 
san in the sense that he was not in touch with the 
people's welfare, irrespective of party prejudice. He 
never wavered in his allegiance to his profession. 
Unlike most lawyers who turn from the forum of the 
court room to engage in political battles, he always 
maintained an unbroken intercourse with the courts at 
bar, and still found an unabated pleasure in the writ- 
ings of a long line of illustrious jurists. These were 
the companions of his solitude. After the great 
authors of jurisprudence, he loved to^ read the fathers 
of the Constitution. That instrujnent was always 
the rock upon which his feet rested. Mr. Garland was 
not iat any time a great general or miscellaneous 
reader of literary work, but he had a few favorite 
authors whom he would read and reread with ever-in- 
creasing admiration and affection. Nevertheless he 
gathered during his life-time a library of some three 
thousand well-chosen volumes, exclusive of his law 
library. In this he took great pride. After his death 
this library was put on the market and the books were 
widely scattered, some going to the libraries of Hen- 
drix and Ouachita Colleges, but the larger part, and 
especially his rare books and those containing auto^ 
graphs of celebrities, went to New York. 



Augustus Hill Garland 105 

Mr. Garland never was a conspirator; nor did 
he ever entertain a thought in public life that was not 
for the good of Arkansas. He never shirked a respon- 
sibility when the honor of his State was at stake. Sen- 
ator Hoar, with whom he had engaged in many a 
debate over matters in the Senate of the United States, 
said upon motion of Senator Jones that that body take 
a recess in order that Senators might attend Mr. Gar- 
land's funeral: '*Mr. President, it will perhaps not 
be inappropriate for some gentleman on this side of 
the chamber to express the great affections which his 
old associates here felt for this eminent gentleman 
who died so suddenly in the heigth of his intellectual 
vigor, in the capitol itself. He was a model of the 
Senatorial character; an admirable lawyer; a states- 
man whose vision and interest comprehend the 
whole country, without distinction of section or party ; 
a man full of patriotism and unimpeachable personal 
integrity; a model not only of the character of the 
Senator, but of the character of the gentleman." The 
above is an admirable summary of what might be 
termed a practical view of Mr. Garland's life and 
character. That he had faults and made mistakes is 
simply to say that he shared in the common infirmi- 
ties of humanity; but they were far outweighed by 
clear judgment, a mind of unusual strength, and many 
shining virtues which greatly endeared him to those 
he represented. He was a manly man, ever-approach- 
able, though possessing great courage in his convic- 
tions ; and while urging them with a zeal born of hon- 
est belief, he had the inestimable faculty of winning 
adherents by strength of presentation, blended with 
suavity of manner. He was conspicuous in the fact 
that his broad soul expanded with tender and affec- 
tionate regard for the poor and humble. 



106 Augustus Hill Garland , 

The world would be poor indeed without the memo- 
ries of its mighty men. In honoring great men, a 
nation or state but honors itself ; for great men are the 
index-fingers of the country's greatness. They form 
the channels through which we pass ; they shape our 
destiny. Above, all citizens of a country like ours, or 
any country for that matter, should honor the brave 
and independent spirit, and the man of great integri- 
ty. The very character of a civilization comes to 
flower and fruit in the wealth in its literature of trib- 
utes to its mighty dead. Mr. Garland stood at the 
very summit of his power when stricken down — the 
peer of the greatest. An orator always logical and 
intense, sometimes even picturesque, he had always 
the ''indefinable something" men call presence. He was 
an absolutely honest man, and one whose principles 
could not in any way be bought. He believed that 
betrayal of trust is the death of the nation. In Con- 
gress' at a time most trying in our history, when men 
in high places were being contaminated, he went in 
and came out without charge or suspicion on his char- 
acter. Above all, he kept ever and always the company 
of his self-respect. Faithful and incorruptible, he was 
an ideal statesman, and representative. He was proud 
of his State, and his State is justly proud 
of him. He gave to his country his highest service, 
his deepest thought. Let the country therefore honor 
him with monumental shafts — fit emblems of struc- 
tures already built in human estimation by the inten- 
sity of conviction and unswerving courage of the man. 

The public career of Augustus H. Garland is a rich 
volume of true greatness. His record is a part of the 
history of his country. We trust it will ever be an 
inspiration to youth and admiration to age. His career 
is closed. His passing repeats ''the old story that is 



Augustus Hill Garland 



107 



retold in every flower that blooms and every leaf that 

falls that all our strivings, ambitions, contentions, 

victories, have for their exhibition only a narrow and 
temporary stage ; and the actors themselves, and the 
objects for which they contend, are alike but for a 
day." 




lB-136. 
11-13 




c '^ " ° -» ^. j 



f: 



L^ 



<1 ' vC 



^ v-. 



^ o « o - ,0- 









% ^y^^^.' ^^\ "'^^S J'^^\ ^^i"^.' ^^^% 

$:^ \/^^,\^o^' '^'^^ \/ ^:^^ 










A. » 



O ST. AUGUSTINE 
'^^ ^«^% FLA. 0°" "* "<^ 

32084 v^^^i^^t^"-. '^> -^ 




0' 






>^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - 




I 11 



